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.

Comments

Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looked pretty good till I got to the bit about only carrying 9 passengers.

Re:Cool...

[Luckyo]

It actually looks utterly awful, because it's still using traditional propulsion style of a small amount of fairly large engines. The revolution in electric flying is that you can use a large amount of very small engines, to the point where you can turn your entire control surface into a mass of tiny engines, allowing for significant aerodynamic advances.

I.e. something like NASA's x-57 test bed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The unsolvable problem remains the energy density of batteries. At least until we figure out something like lithium air batteries in terms of energy density with has been perpetually "two decades away" for something close to half a century.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually looks utterly awful, because it's still using traditional propulsion style of a small amount of fairly large engines. The revolution in electric flying is that you can use a large amount of very small engines, to the point where you can turn your entire control surface into a mass of tiny engines, allowing for significant aerodynamic advances.

You mean MOTORS.

Re:Cool...

[Whibla]

It's a passenger airplane. 650 miles is basically useless.

The distance from London to Glasgow, to give just one commonly traveled route, is about 420 miles, and the estimated driving time between the two is just over 7 hours.

In other words this place would very easily fill the role of carrying business passengers (or MP's, or...) between the two, with fewer carbon emissions, in less than a quarter of the time it would otherwise take. Another advantage is that we're talking about a small aircraft, meaning it can take off from, and land at, smaller, regional, airfields.

That you cannot see a use-case for the aircraft says more about your imagination or experience of the world than it does about the actual utility of the vehicle.

Re: Cool...

[Nidi62]

The recent Lion Air crash is a perfect example. Beyond the fact that the plane probably wasn't airworthy the MAX 8 also had the MCAS which Boeing seemingly failed to disclose and therefore pilots were never trained on it. Fortunately for the crew and passengers on the Lion Air flight the day before the crew performed a checklist that involved disconnecting the stabs which effectively disabled the MCAS. The crew of the flight that crashed apparently didn't. So even though no one was aware of the system and the pilots weren't trained for it, Boeing is still likely pushing for a "pilot error" designation.

Something doesn’t feel right...

[Anonymous Coward]

260kw engines x3 = 780 Kw power draw from engines at full throttle. Control surface actuators, radio, aircon, navigation, lighting all have to draw power from the same battery pack... I’d wager this has barely an hour of flight endurance at full engine power. Worse if wing de-icing were also battery powered.

They claim 650 mile range at 276 mph, which is a bit more than two hours flight time... I realize the engines shouldn’t have to be at full throttle for most of a flight, but this still seems like not enough to provide an operating reserve to divert to another airport or wait in a holding pattern for long

If these fly I can only see them being approved for very short hops.

Re:Something doesn’t feel right...

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long does a 780kwh battery pack take to charge? Sure the per seat/flight costs might be cheaper. But if your plane can only fly once every 24hours it doesn't make you much money compared to a hydrocarbon plane that can be refueled and back in air in half an hour.

Then the is the logistics of actually charging a fleet of these planes. You'll end up with airports that draw more power than the surrounding cities that they service just charging up planes.

If electric jumbo jumbo jets ever became a thing, airports would probably need to operate their own nuclear power plant onsite just to charge the planes.

Battery weight?

[orzetto]

They claim "current technology", but with current technology 900 kWh weigh about 9 tons (considering the battery pack). Ultimate density for Li-ion, according to this report (figure 6-12), could get it to 3 ton or just below.

That's in any case a lot more than the payload for a plane that size. In general, current battery technology cannot be used on regional flights, much less intercontinental ones. Hydrogen may be an alternative for regional (still not long-range), though it might require making the plane look like a beluga to accommodate the tanks.

900 kWh on a 9-seater? Vaporware, unless they show what battery pack they are using.

Re:Replace commuter turboprops?

[Rei]

Q-400 fuel tank = 6526L. At $1,50/l for aviation fuel, that's about $10k in fuel costs per trip, for a typical 82 passenger capacity configuration (90 max configuration), about $119 per passenger.

Alice battery = 900kWh. At commercial rates of $0,08/kWh, that's $72, which works out to $8 per passenger

Even when you factor in the range difference (2040km vs. ~1050km), clearly the energy costs are far lower for the latter per-passenger per unit distance. Practically irrelevant.

As for how much everything else costs (pilot, maintenance, depreciation, etc), I can't say. But as for energy, it's a blowout comparison. Aviation fuel is expensive even compared to road fuel costs, which are expensive compared to residential electricity rates, which are expensive compared to commercial electricity.

Obviously such an aircraft is not designed for busy routes. But it looks like an obvious contender for lesser-trafficked routes. It would be awesome for our domestic flights here in Iceland; our airports could probably charge at around $0,06/kWh, but fuel here is crazy-expensive. Scaled-up aircraft for busier routes will come when their smaller brethren prove their worth in their roles.

Today's battery tech already supports electric aircraft in such "puddle jumper" roles. Battery tech advancement is only required for longer-range air service.