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JetBlue and Boeing Are Betting Big On Electric Jet Startup 'Zunem Aero' (theverge.com)
A new startup called Zunum Aero is aiming to reinvent how users travel short distances, such as from San Francisco to Los Angeles. "The Kirkland, Washington-based company [...] plans to build a fleet of hybrid electric jets to sell to major carriers for service on densely traveled regional routes like San Francisco to Los Angeles or Boston to Washington, DC, "reports The Verge. Two aviation giants, Boeing and JetBlue, are reportedly backing the startup. From the report: Lower operating costs (i.e., no fueling) will allow carriers to reduce fares by 40 to 80 percent, they predict. And by flying a smaller aircraft that would be subject to fewer TSA regulations, Zunum claims it will take less time to go through security before boarding one of its planes. Zunum aims to build several models of hybrid-electric propulsion jets. At launch, its first class of aircraft will be tiny, in the 10-15 foot range, with a 10-passenger capacity and a range of up to 700 miles on a single charge. (Think San Francisco to Portland or Atlanta to DC.) Those planes can be expected to roll off the assembly line by the early 2020s, the company's CEO Ashish Kumar told The Verge. By the 2030s, as electric battery technology improves, Zunum hopes to build larger aircraft that can carry up to 50 passengers and travel up to 1,000 miles on a single charge. (Think Seattle to LA or Boston to Jacksonville, Florida.) Zunum's aircraft will feature hybrid electric motors with the capacity to accept recharging power from a variety of sources. Because airplanes are typically kept in service for up to 30 years, Kumar says its important for Zunum's aircraft to be future proof. That means designing them to be compatible with future battery designs and range-extending generators, with an eye toward ultimately switching from hybrid propulsion to fully electric motors once the technology catches up.
yeah right
Less time to go through security ? I don't think so.
No need for refueling ? Let us know how that works out for you ( hint : you might want to Google "Gimli Glider" ).
I'm sure others will chime in with ridicule, so that's all the time I am going to spend on this utter bullshit.
It's a problem the snake oil salesman known as Ashish Kumar is willfully ignoring.
Yes, batteries will get better, but 40 times better ? That remains to be seen, and there is NO guarantee
it will ever happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials
How can a jet be electric?
"Lower operating costs (i.e., no fueling)..."
Its gotta be perpetual motion. Just free electricity! Let me on that plane... Not!
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
An electric jet? That's funny. Kind of like a three wheeled bicycle.
While it might work during cruise and landing, will the extra fuel need for takeoff and possibly to support flight at cruise altitude, and thus extra fuel burn and the need to carry such fuel, outweigh the benefits in reduced fuel consumption. AC manufacturers go to great lengths to save a pound given the cost savings over a plane's lifetime, this seems to be a bit of a pipe dream right now. For example, they pulled airphones once usage dropped to the point the companies supplying the tech and paying a fee to put it on airplanes lost money, just as pulling in seat video makes sense with the addition of wifi and the increase number of passengers carrying tables and cell phones made it more economical to provide wifi access to the in seat features that way. they were carrying the weight anyway in passenger luggage, why not get rid f the in seat weight to save money. Add in the potential for a catastrophic fire while flying due to a battery problem and you have some reall hurdles to overcome, I can see Boeing and JetBlue putting some money into it to get access to the technology if it pans out, just as investing in experimenting with alternate fuel sources makes sense.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Energy density of batteries is nowhere near what's needed. Weight is the enemy of aircraft.
Add to that fire risk.
This is just Boeing and Airbus splurging a little bit of cash in the hopes that something *might* come out of it in the future.
It's just like an IT startup VC round. Most fail. If one does come off, it can come off bigly.
Don't hold your breath for electric hybrid planes.
So a hybrid = no fuel? What are these guys smoking? Hopefully they're not smoking it by the refueling truck.
You're also carrying the extra weight of the battery and whatever device consumes the fuel and makes electricity. There's loss there. Unless you can somehow run the engine at its most efficient range (typically cruise) Then takeoff and land on battery power?
Part of the savings of an auto hybrid is the ability to recapture the energy from braking. None of that in the sky.
Using direct jet power to taxi at 10 mph from the gate to the runway, and visa versa, is damn inefficient, fuelwise. One commonly-quoted factoid is that a Concorde would use more fuel taxiing from gate to runway, than a standard airliner would use in an entire short-haul European flight. Even ordinary jetliners waste a lot of fuel in the process.
Electric motors connected to the wheels might be a more economical way to move the the plane around on the ground. We'd have to compare fuel saved taxi-ing, versus weight of batteries+electrical gear. The electrical motor gearing would have to be disengaged when the plane comes in for landing... but wait a minute... could the plane use re-generative braking to partially recharge its batteries whilst landing?
There are 2 possible implementations of electrical taxi-ing
1) A battery. That would be the heavier solution.
2) An induction-powered motor drawing power from cables just beneath the runway surface. That would eliminate the need for batteries.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
A Cessna 172 is 27 feet long, and carries 4 people, including one or two pilots. This thing claims to be 10 to 15 feet long, and carry 10 passengers + a pilot or two? How's that gonna work?
Two possibilities; either that's wingspan, not overall length, or alternatively, notice they never mentioned how tall the plane is
Looking at historical trends of decreasing seat size in commercial airliners, and extrapolating forward to 2020 when they expect to have this thing ready....they should easily be able to fit 10 passengers in this thing.
Capacity 6-20 skydivers, swappable quick-chargeable batteries, flight time of at least 20 minutes. Anything that increases reliability and reduces running costs would be awesome, and anything that can go at full power all the way to altitude (14000 ft/4000 m) will save time. Reduced cycle time means more skydiving, more fun and more money.
Right now only turboprops reach altitude quickly, but they are expensive to buy and maintain, and need to fly 2-3 loads for every engine start because each start counts down to the next service. This makes them hard to keep around at a small club.
It turns out it takes a significant amount of energy to lift the airplane into the atmosphere for the short flights. I guess the electric hybrid part is the electric regenerative braking for going down in altitude. Frankly, Boeing should stick to its big, long range airplanes, and let someone like Embraer support this startup.
Electric jets run on pure hype.
The important thing to know about this company is that there is no prototype yet. The news is that they are "Working with FAA", but given that they don't actually have an airplane,
even one worthy of the "Experimental" designation, there hardly seems a point in working with the FAA.
We'll get electric aircraft eventually. I suspect not from these folks, and we might have to wait a bit longer for the battery technology.
Bruce Perens.
OMG its finally real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_jjBVBd_0Q
I found an article with a better description of the proposed technology.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-startup-is-building-an-electric-airplane
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The energy required to fly a plane is far higher than anything that current battery technology can offer, in fact, it's laughable that anybody with half a brain actually believes this is possible today, or in five years' time, unless they have a crystal ball.
And as for 'no refuelling' - where does the energy come from? Magic?
by the magic of benzodiazepines
Flying wing, side-by-side seating. The Cessna is 27 feet because of its tail boom, which a flying wing does not have.
That sounds like it's going to be discontinued before it ever takes off! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Consider a Boeing 777 as long as the 172. More of the fuselage is used for seating. Trim problems all over the place of course.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
A Cessna 172 is 27 feet long, and carries 4 people, including one or two pilots. This thing claims to be 10 to 15 feet long, and carry 10 passengers + a pilot or two? How's that gonna work?
maybe they mean 10 dead people shrink wrapped together
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
when you don't consider high speed rail. People flying short distances when they could have taken a bullet train. Flying should be reserved for longer distances.
And its initial release is Aero
Somebody turn off that Twilight Zone soundtrack!
So they will be able to fly a length up to 15 feet? That's revolutionary.
Does COSTCO have anything to do with it?
> to reinvent how users travel short distances, such as from San Francisco to Los Angeles
Why reinvent the wheel? Trains have been rolling since about 1803 and electrified bullet trains can now do 380km/h (235mph) sustained. Idela for such routes as SF-to-LA.
To compare energy needs: a french TGV bullet train uses about 15000 kW of 25kV AC (typically nuclear / hydro-dam) electric power to move about 540 people at max. 320km/h, avergae 270km/h. The typical low-cost airline A-320 / B-737 plane uses app. 60000 (hydrocarbon based) horsepower to transport 180-188 people at max. 850km/h, trip average 600km/h speeds.
Thus we are talking about 3x energy needed to transport 1/3rd as much people at 3x speeds by plane, compared to bullet train. (In fact, door-to-door access speeds are much better for trains, since they go from city center to city center and the onboard experience is much more comfortable than herring-stuffed narrowbody airliners.)
The big problem is USA's relutance to hang catenary over the tracks, because you can never get high-speed trains with diesel traction.
How hard is it to fly over two different surfaces? It's all air up there!
Driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles is about a 4-5 hour drive. And when you arrive you will have a car to navigate Southern California (aka "The Land of the Automobile"). If you were to fly, you would either take public transportation, or be driven to the airport 2+ hours before your flight, which likely leaves at 5:30 AM, (at which point, you abandon your ground transport). Then you have to put up with massive crowds going through the TSA nightmare, take off your shoes and belt...awkwardly put them back on while the line waits impatiently behind you...after being screened for bombs, toothpaste, water bottles, and other dangerous items. After being probed you will continue on to your gate where you will play the waiting game. Let's face it, not airplane has ever been early. San Francisco is prone to dense fog. Your flight will either be delayed to land or take off will be delayed while they clear out the fog. Then you will board, be crushed by the fatties who should be charged for multiple seats, crying children, your carry-on items will have shifted by the time you land. You have been exposed to any number of flu/cold viruses while on the plane and in all of the lines you had to wait in. And hopefully your ride is there to pick you up at LAX. Public transport is lacking in SoCal. Of course you can rent a car, but that is another line to wait in and battle to fight.
I think a lot of us get so focused on the advantages of pure electric that we ignore the option of using artificially generated hydrocarbon fuels (ie synthetic gas and/or diesel for cars) to help fill in special use cases (like airplanes) and give non-rich people time to replace their existing automobiles, boats, etc.
While these devices will still emit something, they should be able to get near to 0 NET emissions (if they pull the CO2 from the air when creating them.)
The other neat advantage of this idea is that it might be possible to use this to store excess wind/solar energy for baseline usage if it's combined with an IC engine that is powered by the fuel the renewable source creates when the sun is up/wind is blowing.
i would like to make this Prior art so no patent can be filed preventing anybody working on electric planes. In future i will attempt to make airplane that will use electric motors and battery and it will fly and will carry passengers and/or cargo, the design would be based on lots of RC planes in existence today. It will be much better than stinky planes today, and will reduce the cost flying, this will use a futuristic battery and motor and would be amazing and better than anything in existence today. Now can somebody give me few billion $ for my invention please, i want to start working on the prototype.
San Francisco to Portland is 635 miles as the crow flies. A plane with a range of 700 miles could not serve this route. The FAA requires that an airplane have enough fuel to get to its primary destination, then from there to the nearest diversion field (in case the primary is unavailable), and still have 45 minutes of cruising capability so it can circle the field waiting for a landing slot.
How is the hybrid technology going to work with a plane?
In cars, hybrid technology works by re-capturing energy while breaking and works best when in the stop-and-go traffic of a city. On the highway, hybrid cars get only slightly better mileage than pure internal combustion cars because there so few opportunities for energy re-capture in steady driving.
Planes don't do stop and go. Plane flight is more akin to highway driving so, at least as they fly now, planes wouldn't be able to take any significant advantage of hybrid technology. In order recapture any significant amount of energy (and be worthy of the "hybrid" classification), these planes would have to fly ballistic trajectories -- using stored energy on upward arc and generating it on the downward arc.
First, that seems like it would make traffic control pretty difficult. Second, even with a ceiling of 40,000 feet that means either very short distance flights or very shallow arcs which will mean very low energy recapture rates. Third, I can't imagine that even the best designed fan is going to have a very high recapture efficiency.
I don't see how "hybrid" will ever be practical. Might as well just focus on pure-electric. Make the fuselage out of photovoltaics and only fly during the day.
Two possibilities; either that's wingspan,
A ten foot wingspan isn't going to lift a man off the ground let alone 10.