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The Electric Airplane Revolution May Come Sooner Than You Think (robbreport.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: An all-electric mini-airliner that can go 621 miles on one charge and replace many of the turboprops and light jets in use now -- flying almost as far and almost as fast but for a fraction of the running costs -- could be in service within three years. But this isn't another claim by another overoptimistic purveyor of electric dreams. It's using current technology, and the first planes are being built right now. In fact, the process of gaining certification from aviation regulators for what would be the world's first electric commuter plane has already started.
The pressurised Alice from Israeli company Eviation is a graceful-looking composite aircraft with one propeller at the rear and another at the end of each wing, placed to cut drag from wingtip vortices. Each is driven by a 260 kW electric motor, and they receive power from a 900 kWh lithium ion battery pack.
Alongside its 650 mile range, the pressurised $3 million-plus Alice can carry nine passengers and two crew, and cruise at 276 mph -- up there with the speed of the turboprops that are widely used in the commuter role, if not anywhere near that of jets. But crucially, says Eviation chief executive Omer Bar-Yohay, "operating costs will be just 7 to 9 cents per seat per mile," or about $200 an hour for the whole aircraft, against about $1,000 for turboprop rivals.
The pressurised Alice from Israeli company Eviation is a graceful-looking composite aircraft with one propeller at the rear and another at the end of each wing, placed to cut drag from wingtip vortices. Each is driven by a 260 kW electric motor, and they receive power from a 900 kWh lithium ion battery pack.
Alongside its 650 mile range, the pressurised $3 million-plus Alice can carry nine passengers and two crew, and cruise at 276 mph -- up there with the speed of the turboprops that are widely used in the commuter role, if not anywhere near that of jets. But crucially, says Eviation chief executive Omer Bar-Yohay, "operating costs will be just 7 to 9 cents per seat per mile," or about $200 an hour for the whole aircraft, against about $1,000 for turboprop rivals.
Point you are missing is that a CHEAP smaller plane may be economic with small passenger numbers.
Conventional planes need higher passenger numbers to break even and I know here (Oz) those rural destinations really hurt because of that.
This is a nine-passenger aircraft. No matter how cheap it is, it can't replace a common turboprop commuter aircraft like the Q400, which seats 80-90 people.
Below a certain capacity, the cost-per-seat doesn't matter because airlines can only get so many landing and gate slots, and general aviation airports aren't equipped to deal with the sort of volume that would be needed to replace them... not to mention that general aviation airports are usually MUCH worse accessible in terms of public transit and distance from population centers.
Um... no. You can buy an electric airplane such as Pipistrel no problem. And obviously it's possible to scale it up. Question is though, where are the practical engineering and economics limits? Just as obviously as it's possible to scale up electric airplanes, it's currently not feasible to scale it up to rival an intercontinental airliner. But there is a lot of middle ground between a Pipistrel and A350.
Or just burn the hydrogen in a conventional engine?
No, that's a very bad idea. Fuel cells can deliver as much as 80% of the chemical energy of the hydrogen + oxygen -> water reaction as electrons on the wire. The best internal combustion engines will lose at least half of that power as waste heat, and will be even worse when outside of the specific pressure and temperature range that they're designed for.
Whenever we start using hydrogen for aviation fuel, fuel cells powering electric fans is the way to go.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ever seen a Tesla battery pack go up in flames?
Kind of hard to stop and jump out at 20000 feet.
Ever seen what a shotglass worth of vaporized gasoline can do with regards to explosive power?
Kind of hard to use your argument when the risk factor doesn't really change regardless of fuel source.
they can buy a Lear jet for that. This is probably good for a small operator making a entry into air taxis - UBER of the skies :)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
The unsolvable problem remains the energy density of batteries.
Huh? All problems are solved already - they are building this plane. The range is 650 miles, good enough for some interesting use cases. My most frequent plane trip is half of that. Not all plane routes are round-the-world routes. With operating costs 1/4 of nonelectric planes - using this sort of plane for the short hops is a no-brainer.
It's almost as if you've missed all the stuff about driverless cars and pilotless 'planes that's been happening in the last decade.
No sig today...
There are puddle jumpers and there are puddle jumpers: https://www.mayaislandair.com/...
I flew on one of those when we went to Belize. The Alice could replace any of Maya Island Air's planes except perhaps the largest. But even then I'd argue that since they are so much cheaper to fly, you could just add a few flights per day to make up the 1 or 2 seat difference between the Alice and the larger plane.
Something else to consider is that along with the cheaper fuel costs, the maintenance costs of the electric engines would be much much lower.