Does anyone know if there is a theoretical limit for how energy dense a battery could be?
I wonder if there is a possible future where some sort of commercial long haul flights could be done by a fully electric plane. I've never gotten a great answer on this, and maybe we don't have an answer for certain since battery chemistry is some sense is still early days
Lots of places have water or mountains preventing car or train travel or making it go the long way around. Ferries are slow. Those would be natural applications for this. Tallinn-Helsinki city pair for example.
I wonder, if this can get approved or certified somehow now, if then modifications and improvements are relatively easy, as long as many aspects like the pilot interface stays the same. Battery technology improves constantly after all.
As an example, going from the current 200 km range to 400 could make it very useful in numerous regions certainly.
27 mins endurance (?) for $5 of power. Not bad. I rent a 172 and have been paying a $5/h fuel surcharge for the past few months due war in Iran - but at UK avgas prices 27 mins in my plane would be $55ish. Haven’t looked into the details but kind of crazy impact on economics of aviation if this size plane (10x 172 MTOW) can actually do useful short haul
Also a short video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs
You never get to hear what these planes sound like in these promo videos
> It uses electric motors for zero-emission short hops up to 124 miles and backup reserve generators for an extended hybrid range up to 300–500 miles.
I was wondering how they're gonna deal with alternate airports and "fuel" reserves, but it seems they also have generators on board (supposedly used in case of emergency / unplanned detours).
It’s funny they tell you the weight at takeoff. That’s uh not changing.
Presumably the generators have fuel that can be depleted
could we relax the security around electric planes, because they don't carry as much highly explosive material?
that could make it much more convenient and appealing as a travel method
You don't see megawatt-hours of energy in batteries as potentially dangerous?
I'd be stunned if they put a mWh of battery on a plane. This plane in particular only has a range of 120 miles electric-only, so it probably has a pack roughly similar to a modern electric pickup. 200 kWh plus or minus.
By comparison, a regular regional jet probably has around 40 mWh of energy in jet fuel.
Megawatt-hours (MWh) are one billion times larger than milliwatt-hours (mWh).
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Jetfuel is dense and energetic.
Yes it is. And there's no getting around that, a battery is just chemically-stored energy, the same in that sense as kerosene.
Total energy is going to be comparable for aircraft with similar ranges, I don't think a lithium fire is any less unpleasant than a Jet-A fire for for anyone nearby.
Even if the batteries could be made entirely inert, the ability to deliver a plane sized slug of kinetic energy to a building of your choice retains most of the danger.
Even if that could be avoided, a plane must remain operational enough throughout all flights to avoid falling out of the sky.
It would take a large bomb to take out a whole bus load of passengers, a very small one to put safety critical systems of a plane out of action.
As much as I would appreciate this happening, I don't think electric planes are going to make it happen.
> lithium fire
Nit: a lithium ion battery fire isn't a lithium fire, it's the electrolyte. Lithium ion batteries don't use elemental lithium. Thankfully.
Jet fuel, like diesel are not flammable, let alone explosive. They are combustible.
Gasoline on the other hand …
They cary the same amount of energy
Interesting thought, but I'm not sure the (admittedly flammable & explosive) fuel load is the main threat posed by a hijacked aircraft — the large mass at velocity can still to major damage and casualties wherever it is crashed.
Plus, depending on the battery chemistry, that material could also create a serious fire; it is a lot of stored energy either way.
So, I would not wait for it
Nope, because we all know about the race to the bottom of all companies and the littlest crack or wiggle room will be used to save a penny and kill people.
At 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win. I wonder why they don't push the idea of it being a hybrid more, as it seems to me a lot of useful routes are going to rely on the generators.
I'd love to see something that can do around 250mi. It would be nice to electrify transit in the Texas Triangle if we end up never being able to actually build useful HSR.
I wish them luck on continuing to try!
As someone who lives in the Great Lakes region - there are a ton of 100 mile flights that would take 4 hours to drive - often as the first leg in a two-flight trip. Also places like Denver -> Ski resorts (Vail/Aspen/Crested Butte) are 2 - 3hr drives, heavily dependent on road conditions all within the pure-electric range.
There's regular DEN to COS flights by United, every hour on the hour. Sometimes can be faster than driving, would be a great one to replace. Also ORD to MKE. A lot of small routes that are about 100 miles that are equally inconvenient to drive.
ORD to MKE is a 60-90 minute drive depending on traffic. When you account for going through ORD security, boarding, taxiing at ORD, etc. I'm not so sure that it's a win for travel time. Depends on where you're starting from in the Chicago area, I suppose.
Your DEN to COS suggestion would probably be quite popular for skiers coming in that want to avoid renting a car and would enjoy the electric hop to avoid a 2hr drive.
The real winning route would be two airports separated by ~100miles that still have a 3+hr drive, or two small regional airports where security time is negligible (that's certainly NOT O'hare, in my experience at least lol) Flights leaving GRB to northern Michigan would be perfect for this though since the alternative is to drive around Lake Michigan.
ORD to MKE is a (mostly) silly flight if that's your whole trip.
ORD to MKE is reasonable as part of a X -> ORD -> MKE one stop; at least when I was using MKE, I'd always need a stop (Midwest was too expensive for me) and ORD was an option, although I think I always went through DFW or PHX.
>Also places like Denver -> Ski resorts (Vail/Aspen/Crested Butte) are 2 - 3hr drives
See also: Boston and NYC to Cape Cod and the Hamptons.
The electric/green angle helps with these kinds of routes too.
The best use case might be short flights over water or other geographic obstacles where driving routes might be much longer or impossible. Like Kahului Airport to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport for example.
What happens when a large amount of these batteries get submerged in fresh or salt water?
Island hopping is the usual sales pitch for these planes.
Maybe from mainland to islands if there's enough range for the round-trip. Otherwise many islands are not going to have the electrical infrastructure to handle the charging demands.
I would not expect the charging demands to be that big a deal on a plane this small, at least. I would guess the battery is about the same size as a modern long range electric pickup. A garden variety 400 kW fast charger would probably be sufficient. Surely any island big enough for a proper airport could handle that.
I guess it depends. Some island airports aren't much more than a landing strip.
There are like 10,000 flights between Milwaukee and Chicago every year. Personally I would take the train, but a lot of people do not.
Remember the days when people laughed at the range and charge times of first-gen electric vehicles?
GE along with BETA, NASA, and Boeing showcased a hybrid aircraft at the Farnborough airshow last month that's worth checking out!
https://investors.beta.team/news-events/press-releases/detai...
>"At 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win."
It's about feeding the existing network. Millions of people in the US live in places a 2+hr drive to the nearest major airport, but have plenty of smaller municipal fields nearby. Electric aviation could finally make it profitable and cheap enough to run those routes. It also opens the door to true commuter aviation becoming a thing, when you can offer short flights for the cost comparable to a train ticket, and operate out of small fields with small planes multiple times a day and no need for the whole TSA experience.
> Millions of people in the US live in places a 2+hr drive to the nearest major airport
If its >2 hour drive to the airport this plane probably isn't going to take you there on pure-electric power, that's my point. If you drive 65MPH for two hours, you've gone further than this thing can fly (on pure battery).
Appx 5% of us domestic flights, 1200 per day.
They want to push the 'all electric range' angle, but the people who buy it know what it can do.
beta also seems to do their flight testing in plattsburgh, ny, anyone know why?
New York State is funding Plattsburgh as an electric aviation R&D hub, and actually gave BETA $20M in a grant.
Electric regional air travel is something I’m really excited about.
I'd prefer a train but since I live in Iceland this would be perfect.
Your user handle complements the message perfectly
Electric aircraft makes no economic sense, but I'd want to see them flying one day nonetheless.
> Electric aircraft makes no economic sense
You better start working on them now if you want them to be ready when they'll make economical sense, which might be in a not so distant future
For short haul they make sense at high fuel prices.
And for medium haul they make sense if you can get beamed power working.
could someone explain to me how that $5 spend is lying to me. i know elec is cheap, but that cheap?
$5 does not make sense, and there must be some qualifer on that we're missing.
Napkin math:
(27 minute flight) * (25000 lbm TOGW) * (Earth gravity) / (~10 average L/D) * (160 KTAS average) / (70% propulsive efficiency) / (97% coulombic efficiency) * ($50/MWh) = $30
(Add residual kinetic energy upon landing too)
Side note: Heart also has a weight issue here they'll need to overcome if they want to certify under FAR Part 23 (as their 19-pax spec implies); TOGW limit for that is 19,000 lbm.
It's a 30-pax (32-seat), Part 25.
They’re using wholesale prices. The entire flight was 27 minutes, peaked at a megawatt of power, and a wholesale megawatt-hour is $40-50 these days.
I tried to run a napkin calculation, and that 5$ figure must be quoted per seat (30 seats). And a 'first flight' might be very very short, like 15 minutes of flying or less.
During certain hours of the day in California, electricity is essentially free due to solar overproduction, which sometimes causes negative wholesale prices.
I've never quite understood negative electric/gas/oil prices.
Are you literally paid for agreeing to receive the energy?
Yes. Counterintuitive, but it make sense when you take all the factors into account (such that completely shutting down and then later restarting turbines may cost a generator more than paying someone to take power off their hands).
Yep. Last August the total cost to charge my car for the month was -10SEK of about -$1.05 US, as my energy company was trying to put load into its batteries at the times when the grid most needed it.
Grid had too much production and needed somewhere to put it, so they paid the GP to put the energy into GP's car.
On an electric grid, Supply and Demand must meet. When demand is low, you either reduce supply or increase demand and sometimes it's easier to increase demand.
Also, if you're supplying electricity, you may have reason to supply it even when the wholesale cost is negative. If you have production incentives not included in the wholesale price, you can be profitable at negative wholesale prices. (Things like green incentives, or base load incentives, or long term supply price guarantees)
If significantly reducing your output takes time or causes operational difficulties, it may be sensible to deliver at negative prices as you taper off. If you have a fuel shipment inbound and nowhere to store it, the negative wholesale price may be less expensive than cost to deal with the storage logistics.
Yes, if you’re a battery in the system. Basically discourages generation because there’s too much supply. But this generally doesn’t trickle to consumers afaik.
Easiest to understand with oil. During Covid the price of oil went negative. So you’d be paid if you bought that oil.
Sounds like a great deal right? But now you’re on the hook for receiving and storing that oil. That costs money, it’s not free. That’s why the price went negative - the seller was trying to offload and there were no takers at $0.
VTOL aircraft have the same distance capabilities and make more sense in a lot more scenarios than this, with way more flexibility. It’s obviously larger but I’m just not sure of potential advantages over other modes of transport currently available and in the near future
I'm not so sure. I haven't seen a true regional airline class VTOL yet, mostly just demonstrators that carry a few people, at that. The fact that it's larger is actually very important, the economics of a regional jet replacement make far more sense than that of an air taxi. I also doubt the similar range claim, lifting an airframe directly into the air without wings is far, far less efficient than just taking off with the benefit of lift. They're also way more complex and would require additional training for pilots.
Further, noise restrictions will probably limit VTOL's to airports, never underestimate the NIMBY's. Note that demo videos of eVTOL's almost always have background music rather than ambient sound.
VTOL will not have the same distance capability because the 'vertical' flgiht is the most energy intesive. It's why there's designs like the Beta which transition from VTOL to fixed wing forward flight as soon as they can.
VTOL have other advantages of course in terms of operational flexibility, but where there's existing airfields, fixed electric would be more efficient
Also, at the size/scale of this aircraft (thirty passengers) any type of VTOL wouldd be even less practical
Aren't VTOL aircraft significantly more complex and riskier to operate than fixed-wing prop aircraft? There's certainly many fewer moving parts and tricky transitions from hover to airfoil flight regime.
A quick search of Osprey Class A mishaps puts it slightly ahead (better off) than Blackhawk or Super Stallion.
But a way worse record when compared to the fixed-wing C-130.
Both comparisons are per 100k flight hours.
Some of that risk can possibly be mitigated with a rotating engine, but fixed wing, similar to the Bell Valor. Possibly, because AFAIK, the Valor is the only plane like this and it's just a PoC.
And there’s that whole pesky problem of not being able to glide to a safe landing when something goes catastrophically wrong.
that varies with the design (they could have small fixed wings). Beta have full-airframe ballistic parachutes i believe. That is feasible at least for smaller aircraft.
> Largest Electric Aircraft
"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse) and [Helios](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype...) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples.
Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever is writing their PR pieces.
I guess it's the largest by its useful load.
>"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim.
Largest in terms of takeoff weight. Wingspan is a pretty meaningless metric for "largest aircraft". By that logic the planes you linked are larger than a 737.
There is a word for that. It is "heaviest", not "largest".
It's largest based on length and mass as well. Why only look at wingspan/width?