World’s largest electric cargo plane unveiled, here’s how far it can fly on its own
A new zero-emission autonomous electric cargo plane was unveiled Monday that could be a game changer in the shipping industry. The electric plane is the largest zero-emission cargo aircraft, featuring “unprecedented payload and range capabilities.”
Founded in 2017 in CEO Michael Norcia’s parent’s garage, Pyka is now a leader in electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.
Initially, the focus was on crop spraying rather than cargo, with fewer regulations and hurdles to clear. After raising a $3 million round in March 2018 from Y Combinator, a tech startup accelerator, Pyka set up to design and build its first product, the “Egret.”
By May 2019, Pyka certified the Egret for commercial operation with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, making it the first human-scale electric aircraft for commercial work.
Shortly after raising another $8 million in funding, the company flew its second-generation electric crop sprayer, the “Pelican.” The Pelican would soon go to work spraying bananas for major customers in Costa Rica.
In July 2021, Pyka’s Pelican was the first autonomous fixed-wing aerial to spray over a banana crop field. The young aviation company is now making history again, introducing its Pelican Cargo, the world’s largest autonomous electric cargo plane.
Pyka reveals the largest autonomous electric cargo plane
Pyka, gave us a glimpse into what the future could look like with its Pelican Cargo. The purpose-built industrial aircraft is the largest zero-emission cargo airplane and the first autonomous vehicle in its class.
The company believes that electrification and automation will make aviation safer while reducing CO2 emissions, as Norcia explains:
Pelican Cargo will have a significant positive impact on people’s lives. We designed this plane to eliminate C02 emissions from the logistics chain, while offering a significant speed advantage over ground transportation and operating costs at a fraction of conventional air transportation.
The Pelican Cargo will feature a range of up to 200 miles (with a 20 min reserve) and a payload of up to 400 lbs in 66 feet of cargo space. With a sliding cargo tray, loading can be done in five minutes.
The electric airplane features four electric motors, 100 kW combined power, and a 50 kWh lithium-ion swappable battery. As for charging, you can either swap batteries (a five-minute process) or recharge in around one hour – added GPS and Laser/Radar based navigation allow for night flying.
Pyka says it has secured pre-commitments of over 80 orders and options for its electric cargo plane from three customers. The company is rigorously testing the aircraft at Pyka’s test facility in Northern California, with its first commercial operation expected in the second half of the year.
One of Pyka’s customers, Alex Brown of Skysports Drone Services, had high praise for the electric aircraft, saying:
Welcoming the Pelican Cargo aircraft into our fleet will enable us to continue on our mission of solving complex logistical and operational challenges with tailored drone services. We know a thing or two about drones and in our eyes, the Pelican Cargo is the most advanced product in its payload class on the market.
Electrek’s Take
Pyka is on a mission to make aviation safer, more affordable, and more accessible than ever with its autonomous electric aircraft.
By going electric, customers can save on volatile fuel costs. Not to mention the money saved without requiring a crew to operate it (only one safety monitor is needed). Fewer expenses and labor costs can result in additional trips per day and less waiting time between deliveries, saving both businesses and customers in the long run.
Perhaps, the most important aspect is the CO2 emissions that could be saved with this technology. Air transport generated 915 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019, and the trend is expected to continue rising rapidly as people’s buying habits move online.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has already committed to achieving net zero carbon by 2050. Although the majority of CO2 emissions in commercial aviation is from passenger transport, starting with short-distance freight transport will help make an immediate impact while laying the groundwork for fully electric (autonomous?) passenger flights in the future.
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Toyota’s new electric SUV boasts significantly more range, a revamped interior and exterior, and an NACS port, allowing you to recharge at Tesla Superchargers. Despite the upgrades, the 2026 Toyota bZ now starts at under $35,000.
2026 Toyota bZ electric SUV prices and range by trim
The bZ4X, Toyota’s first electric SUV, has been killed off and replaced with the upgraded bZ. Toyota improved it in almost every way possible for the 2026 model year, adding driving range, more features, a fresh new look, and more.
Even with the upgrades, the new and improved Toyota bZ is cheaper than the outgoing bZ4X. Toyota revealed prices for the 2026 bZ electric SUV will start at $34,900, or $2,170 less than the outgoing model.
That’s for the base XLE FWD trim with a 57.7 kWh battery, good for 236 miles range. Upgrading to the extended-range bZ XLE FWD Plus will cost $37,900, but a larger 74.7 kWh battery provides up to 314 miles of driving range, representing a 25% improvement over the 2025 model year.
For AWD, prices start at $39,900. Thanks to new SIC semiconductors, AWD models now pack up to 388 hp, 50% more than the outgoing electric SUV.
The range-topping 2026 Toyota bZ Limited FWD trim starts at $43,300, while upgrading to AWD will cost you an extra $2,000.
| 2026 Toyota bZ trim | Battery | Range | Starting Price* |
| XLE FWD | 57.7 kWh | 236 miles | $34,900 |
| XLE FWD Plus | 74.7 kWh | 314 miles | $37,900 |
| XLE AWD | 74.7 kWh | 288 miles | $39,900 |
| Limited FWD | 74.7 kWh | 299 miles | $43,300 |
| Limited AWD | 74.7 kWh | 278 miles | $45,300 |
Toyota’s new electric SUV now features a built-in NACS port, allowing you to recharge at Tesla Superchargers. With a new thermal management system and battery preconditioning, the bZ can charge from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes.
The new electric SUV features a fresh look both inside and out. Like the latest Camry and Crown, the bZ features Toyota’s new “hammerhead front end design” with an LED light bar across the front.
Inside, the 2026 bZ gets a redesigned center console and a larger 14″ Toyota Audio Multimedia touchscreen, two wireless phone chargers, and an improved dashboard.
Toyota said dropping the “4X” at the end of the name was to simplify things for buyers. The 2026 models are expected to begin arriving at dealerships in the second half of 2025, which could be any day now.
With the 2026 model year arriving soon, Toyota is offering clearance prices on the 2025 bZ4X with up to $12,000 off in lease cash. You can use our link to find Toyota bZ4X models in your area (trusted affiliate link).
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Amid the alliterative, anti-EV “messy middle” rhetoric and the Trump Administration EPA’s ongoing regulatory rollbacks, it’s been tough for fleet and equipment buyers with 8-12 year replacement cycles to make sense of where things are headed – but a new partnership between CASE Construction Equipment and ZQUIP could put those concerns to rest (and make a trip to the CASE dealer a no-brainer).
iVT reports that CASE Construction Equipment has formalized a new partnership with ZQUIP to deliver heavy equipment assets featuring ZQUIP’s swappable energy modules – self-contained power units that could be batteries, fuel cells, or diesel engines. The technology aims to eliminate range and regulation anxiety while maximizing a job site’s energy efficiency and meeting the complex demands of modern construction projects with unprecedented flexibility. And, crucially, at a lower cost than either a mixed BEV/ICE fleet.
“A fully integrated battery system is extremely expensive upfront,” explains Chris LaFleur, managing director of ZQUIP. “This system allows (customers) to buy essentially a bare tool, at a much lower price point.”
For the uninitiated, a “bare tool” is effectively an equipment asset like an excavator or wheel loader that arrives on a job site without a power plant. It’s not electric, it’s not diesel, it’s not natgas – it’s just the machine, with a flat “plate” more or less where you’d expect an engine to be.
Once you’re ready to put that tool to work, a ZQUIP Energy Module gets dropped in, cordless-tool style, and it’s ready to go. That Energy Module could be a contained battery-electric powertrain, or it could be a generator, depending on the energy needs, duty cycles, or regulations (both noise and emissions) that are in play at that specific site.
And, like their hand-held Ryobi cousins, you don’t need as many ZQUIP Energy Modules as you need bare tools. In practice, that means you’re not tying up hundreds of kWh of battery capacity in idle machines.
“The customer decides how he wants to use it,” says Eric Zeiser, product portfolio manager at CNH Industrial, CASE’ parent company. “If he wants to keep his cost low in the beginning, he can buy just one energy module. He could buy the simplest module available to keep his initial purchase price down. And then, in the future, if in six months he realizes his job sites are bigger, he needs more power, he buys the second and third module as he needs to.”
What’s more, different sized equipment assets have different energy needs – and bigger equipment means bigger possibilities. So, while a CASE WX155ZQ wheeled excavator accommodates two energy modules, a CX210ZQ tracked excavator supports three. “On the three-bay CX210 you can have an LFP battery, an NMC battery and a diesel hybrid Energy Module, all together working at the same time,” says LaFleur.
More energy needs = more options
Batteries when it makes sense, ICE when you need it. But, even with an ICE generating the power, the machine is still electric.
“The excavators are always electric,” says Rob Bauer, engineering manager for ZQUIP. “The question is, where does the energy come from? In an optimum case, when you have a normal workday, you’re pulling all the energy out of a battery, and that’s a great day. Everything’s perfect. On the other hand, if you’re in a difficult site, or you have to work a lot of hours in a day, we give you options.”
That’s not just options for the operator, it’s options for the OEM as well.
Growing the CASE EV family
For CASE Construction Equipment and its parent company, CNH Industrial, the ZQUIP partnership represents a strategic expansion, enabling it to grow the brand’s beyond existing compact electric offerings without sacrificing round-the-clock capability or requiring a utility-scale supply of new battery materials.
“CNH has always been a leader in sustainability, and we have a full range of compact electric vehicles, but we didn’t have a solution for heavy machinery until now,” says Egidio Galano, director of construction equipment product management for Europe at CNH Industrial.
The new partnership builds on an established relationship between the companies dating back to 2019. CASE’ 580EV electric backhoe loader, released in 2024 as the industry’s first production-ready purpose-built electric backhoe, utilizes the TerraTech platform from Moog (ZQUIP’s parent) for electric motion control and served as ZQUIP’s initial tester.
Since then, the project has continued to evolve, with the potential to grow to even bigger, more capable heavy machinery offerings. No word yet on pricing.
SOURCES | IMAGES: ZQUIP, via iVT.
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Hyundai will introduce the IONIQ 3 in less than a month. It’s expected to be more affordable than the Kona Electric, but Hyundai’s new EV will be much more advanced.
When will Hyundai launch the IONIQ 3?
We will see the IONIQ 3 for the first time at the Munich Motor Show in early September. Although Hyundai Europe’s CEO, Xavier Martinet, claims its IONIQ series is now the number two EV brand behind Tesla, this could be just the start.
Martinet told TopGear that the Inster EV and IONIQ 3 “are cheaper, so they’ll give us total coverage of the EV market.
The new EV, expected to arrive as the IONIQ 3, will sit between the Inster EV and Kona Electric in Hyundai’s lineup. According to TopGear, the IONIQ 3 will be slightly smaller than the Kona Electric, but more advanced. In the UK, the Hyundai Kona starts at £34,995 ($47,000), so prices are expected to start at about the same or even slightly less.
Like the Kia EV3, the UK’s best-selling retail EV through the first half of the year, the Hyundai IONIQ 3 is expected to be offered with 58.3 kWh and 81.4 kWh battery pack options for a WLTP range of about 260 and 365 miles.
Instead of the 800V electrical system used in the IONIQ 5, 6, and 9 models, the IONIQ 3 will use a cheaper 400V setup.
The interior will feature Hyundai’s latest software and new Pleos operating system, offering a smartphone-like user interface.
To save on costs, Hyundai will build the IONIQ 3 at its plant in Turkey. Martinet wants Hyundai to be just as big in the EV market as it is with gas and hybrid vehicles. Regarding EV sales, he explained that it “isn’t an absolute race but a race against the other manufacturers. We want the same share in all types of powertrain.”
Although adoption has been slower than some expected, Martinet still said, “people don’t go back to ICE” after owning an EV.”
Hyundai is expanding its lineup with new low-cost EVs, but still plans to continue selling gas-powered, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and fully electric (EV) vehicles. It’s also looking to introduce extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which use a gas engine to power the battery.
Although the IONIQ 3 isn’t expected to arrive in the US, thanks to the new tariffs on imports, Hyundai still offers some of the most affordable EVs on the market.
After cutting prices again last month, the new 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 can now be leased for as low as $179 per month. It’s hard to find any monthly lease under $200, but for a $45,000 electric SUV, it’s a steal.
The Kia EV3 is already a top-selling electric vehicle in Europe and the most popular retail EV in the UK this year. Will Hyundai top it with the IONIQ 3? We’ll find out more soon. Stay tuned.
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