India Enters eVTOL Space Many of the eVTOL companies that have aircraft in the concept, design, developmental or certification stages have been either from the United States, UK, Europe of China. However, India is putting itself into the race especially with the numerous and loud calls from the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "leapfrog straight into aerial mobility." Despite this, the eVTOL industry is not one that new players can expect to rush the process and field a new product in the shortest time-frame possible.
Even the established eVTOL companies have experienced several challenges to certifying their products for service entry. However, a relatively new newcomer to the scene is Bengaluru-based Sarla Aviation. This company has actually been started by former interests that previously worked on the Lilium program. Lilium was a German eVTOL manufacturer that in its latter years endured mounting financial issues that led to it filing for insolvency in late 2024. Numerous attempts were made to secure critical funding but with the company now dead that suggests those attempts were unsuccessful.
Several past Lilium engineers now work at the Indian Sarla Aviation enterprise developing the Shunya eVTOL. It is going to be a 6-seat hybrid-electric aircraft and not purely electric. This will help extend the range as well as simplify the developmental process a bit for the young company. It is anticipated that the Shunya will have a range of approximately 435 nautical miles. In pure electric-mode, a 82 nautical mile range is expected. Cruising speed is carded at 136-knots.
Already with a manufacturing facility in hand, Sarla Aviation is looking to have the Shunya eVTOL certified and enter service by 2029. Sarla Aviation isn't even the only eVTOL manufacturer from India either. Chennai‑based ePlane has their e200X eVTOL and is already fully testing a full-sized demonstrator which has already established transitional flight.
This eVTOL though will be much smaller -in terms of capacity- than the Shunya seating only two persons and designed for very short urbanized trips no more than 35 nautical miles making it more suited for air taxi roles. ePlane holds the Synergistic Lift patent in 8 countries and is the first private Indian company to receive Design Organisation Approval (DoA) from India’s DGCA for an electric aircraft. e200X’s type certification is already under progress since December 2024. ***
