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Transportation

The Electric Airplane Revolution May Come Sooner Than You Think (robbreport.com) 336

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.

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The Electric Airplane Revolution May Come Sooner Than You Think

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  • Cool... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10, 2018 @02:17AM (#57778398)

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

    • Re:Cool... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @03:35AM (#57778558)

      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/... [wikipedia.org]

      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: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by 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.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's a question of getting a working, saleable product to market in a few years or gambling on experimental tech that may or may not be commercially viable and then hoping you can sell the concept.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Obvious problem being that this tech will not be working for at least two decades. Battery technology in terms of energy/weight is not even in the ballpark needed for viability. Best hope is breakthrough in lithium-air.

          All you get is proof of concept-items like this one, used mainly for PR. You can find similar designs on pretty much all major airplane manufacturers for example. here is an example of PR for the major names you'll find in the story.

          And before you try to sell me this thing as viable, do look

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            How is it if a proof of concept if it uses a proven concept and delivers a working, viable product to the market?

      • by pz ( 113803 )

        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 would expect the energy losses to bearings for lots of little shafts from lots of little engines to be overwhelming compared to those two or three larger engines with one shaft each.

        Efficiency of fans goes waaaay down as the impeller size shrinks, and the noise goes waaay up. Think about the fans in your computer. I would expect the same principles apply when you scale up to airplane-size fans. Not only that, with a leading-edge composed of fans you now have guaranteed non-laminar flow over your liftin

    • Re:Cool... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Barsteward ( 969998 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @04:28AM (#57778638)
      Why? a lear jet carries about the same amount of passengers.
    • That's only 22 bucks per passenger per hour. That's pretty damn good really. I'd much rather be on a smaller plane with a LOT less people. Leg room, be able to recline again. Comfort without having to pay for 1st class. Sign me up!
    • Re:Cool... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Baldrake ( 776287 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @09:40AM (#57779642)

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

      I live in a city of about 150,000 people. The most common airplane operating out of our airport is the Beechcraft 1900D, which seats 19 people. Trips are to the closest centres, which are all within 300 km.

      So 9 passengers is a little low for replacing these planes, but it's only off by a factor of two. And range is just fine. So there's a market right here for planes that aren't that far off from what this company is offering.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10, 2018 @02:26AM (#57778414)

    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.

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      It could very well be that the first half of the trip is climbing, and the second half is very low power or unpowered descent.

      A typical cruising altitude is ~10km. So 98100J/kg, or 27Wh/kg. Velocity is 123m/s, so that's another 7,6kJ/kg. Call it 30Wh/kg. Now factor in battery / wiring / motor prop losses - you're now closer to 40Wh/kg. Now look at what percentage of your total loaded mass you want to be batteries. A quarter of the aircraft? That's 160Wh/kg (at the pack level, not the cell level), assum

      • That is a typical cruising altitude for passenger jets. The Alice kind of aircraft rarely goes above 7 km.

    • by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @04:56AM (#57778704)

      I realize the engines shouldn’t have to be at full throttle for most of a flight

      For the vast majority of the flight most airplanes are nowhere near full throttle. According to the wiki page [wikipedia.org], the powerplant uses 280 kW at cruise speed and the 966km range includes a reserve. At this point we just don't have any real info other than these manufacturer provided numbers, and given that they have lots of incentives to hype up their plane, we have no reason to trust these numbers. Purely based on the data provided by the manufacturer it's all possible, but who knows how it performs in real life.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Around 20-25% of the fuel used in a conventional flight is just for take-off. The first time you see the fuel gauge falling fast in the first 10 minutes of your flight it can be a bit panic inducing, until you remember this fact.

      Once at altitude and cruising the amount of energy required is substantially lower.

  • by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @02:35AM (#57778430)

    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.

    • Yes, and that turboprop costs 5x an hour to operate, but seats 10x. And I'm pretty sure those costs don't include pilot salaries. And, of course, you're right about the commercial use of these things requiring a lot of (limited) airport resources.

      They may have a market though in those empty flights airlines use to avoid having landing/gate slots taken away from them for underuse.

      • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @05:14AM (#57778738) Homepage

        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.

        • by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @06:54AM (#57778962)

          Q400 is a bad example. It is a very inefficient turboprop, built for speed as a jet replacement for quick turnaround times. Since it is quite a bit faster, fewer units are required to serve a route. Also faster airplanes usually get higher (hence more efficient) flight levels from the ATC.

          This is, by the way, why the cost per unit distance is the wrong measurement.

          That Alice is not this kind of a commercial aircraft anyway, more a replacement for the King Air kind of aircraft, or, judging from the looks of it, is meant to directly compete with the Piaggio P180.

      • While the big airports probably have limited landing slots there are usually unused airports around that could be reactivated. Berlin has about 6 airports. One converted into a park, no idea about the others and the new one under construction is not useable since years. I guess it would be easy to have one or two smaller airports reactivated and use for close range flights to Dresden, Warsa, or Helsinki.

    • Recharge, therefore ramp turnaround time would be a huge issue as well. Unless you can cram those batteries full in no more than 90 minutes the gates are going to get real full, real quick, with the associated fee's to boot.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Wow, it's like nobody has ever thought about multiple battery packs that can be swapped.

        • Wow, it's like nobody has ever thought about multiple battery packs that can be swapped.

          Wow, it's like you never thought about the fact that swappable battery packs weigh more than ones that aren't and that weigh matters a LOT on an aircraft.

          Do you have any idea how much new infrastructure would be required to swap battery packs at the gate of a terminal? How much the extra structure and weight the aircraft has to carry to facilitate swapping? Swapping battery packs the size we are talking about here is a huge logistical and engineering problem. Maybe it can be made to work but it isn't obv

    • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @05:01AM (#57778722) Homepage

      Wait, you're saying that a startup company's first aircraft isn't going to suddenly displace the many tens of thousands of turboprop commuter aircraft operating today?

      Gee, too bad their business model assumes that their first aircraft will displace all current turboprop business, I presume based on no evidence whatsoever and against all common sense.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not competing with common turboprop commuter aircraft any more than a Tesla is competing with common petrol commuter cars. It's for businesses who use private aircraft to ferry the C levels around.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      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.

      Correct. This is an alternative to aircraft like the Beechcraft Superking which is most notable as a commercial island hopper.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by sc0rpi0n ( 63816 )

      A comparable turboprop (PC-12 and TBM 850, 6-8 passengers) has a variable cost of about $600 per hour to operate and a similar purchase cost:
      https://www.avbuyer.com/articl... [avbuyer.com]

      The Q400 costs significantly more per hour: https://prijet.com/operating_c... [prijet.com]

    • 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.

      So you build more general aviation airports. Since the planes will be quieter, you can build them closer to population centers. You use them for short hops, moving those flights out of the large airports and freeing up capacity. It's not a complete solution, it's a partial solution. It won't solve all the problems, but it will solve problems.

  • you wouldn't need an airport for take offs or landings.

    I was curious about the de-icing electrical requirements as well, since winter turboprop trip make me nervous everytime.

  • by ClarkMills ( 515300 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @02:50AM (#57778460)

    Electric, compared to turboprop/jet, should be very low maintenance. This will also be a huge win for short-haul flights like these.

    Google: How often do planes get inspected?

    A check. This is performed approximately every 400-600 flight hours or 200–300 cycles (takeoff and landing is considered an aircraft "cycle"), depending on aircraft type. It needs about 50-70 man-hours and is usually on the ground in a hangar for a minimum of 10 hours.

    • Jet engines are comparably low maintenance parts (except for lubricant oil, that has to be filled up quite often) The kind of aircraft inspection you are mentioning - the A check - is far more than an engine check, replacing jet engines with electric engines would make little difference there.

  • Battery weight? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by orzetto ( 545509 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @02:52AM (#57778462)

    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 [element-energy.co.uk] (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.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Your numbers are a bit off. The current Hyundai Kona has a ~68kWh pack* which weighs 453kg. So for 900kWh that would be around 6 tonnes, or 6.6 tons.

      It would probably be less than that though, because the Kona pack includes all the support structures and water cooling. That stuff won't scale linearly, assuming they even are using water cooling.

      * the listed 64kWh is the usable amount, not the full capacity which is secret but seems to be at least 68kWh.

    • They claim "current technology", but with current technology 900 kWh weigh about 9 tons (considering the battery pack).
      If you use batteries like in the current Teslas, it is roughly 4 tons ... not 9.

  • by Pezbian ( 1641885 ) on Monday December 10, 2018 @05:01AM (#57778724)

    About 20 years ago, Morton International (now Autoliv) used a private jet to shuttle explosive airbag initiators between the Tremonton, Utah and Brigham City, Utah plants. It was a 20 mile flight and ridiculously-expensive (because Learjet), but the initiators were illegal to transport via the freeway. Ultimately, the Tremonton initiator plant was closed. The airport closed a short time later because that jet was the only real reason it stayed open.

    There's a lot of distance between cities in Utah. Brigham City isn't that big at ~18,000 people and it's a 30 mile flight North to Logan with a population of 50,000 or a 30 mile flight South to the Ogden Metro area with a population around 500,000. It's a further 30 miles to the Salt Lake City Metro area with a population over 1,000,000.

    Booking full 9-passenger flights between Brigham City and Salt Lake City would be easy. A round-trip would be faster and cheaper than the FrontRunner train (which is supposed to link to Brigham City in the distant future) in terms of operating expenses, even at half-capacity. Engineers, Doctors, etc, who live in the less-crowded Brigham City area already commute to Salt Lake. Saving an extra two or three hours a day on the commute (not to mention the stress of traffic) is something people with the money would gladly pay for.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Whibla ( 210729 )

      Leaving aside the snide digs and cynicism, you do make a very good point, one which has been troubling me of late - albeit more in relation to the various governmental promises to phase out ICE engines in favour of electric cars, buses, etc.

      While electrical power consumption has been relatively flat, across the EU at least, over the last decade, as increased efficiencies counteract increased sources of demand, I'm not sure I've seen credible plans for increasing power generation (anywhere near) to the point

      • Less so for something like a plane, but there's a lot of cheap wind power generated at night and we can presumably scale that up pretty easily.

        I imagine with some kind of clever smart grid control we can set rules like "always charge my car to 30% if power is less than $1/kWh, then charge it fully when it drops below 8c/kWh, and dump it back out to the grid if power exceeds $2/kWh"

        That should do a lot to smooth overall demand, but it doesn't change the fact that it'll still will require a lot more windmills

  • 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.

    Any discussion of distance traveled in an aircraft without also indicating the weight of the cargo (including passengers) it can carry is either marketing hype or fanboyism. This is EXACTLY the same problem discussions of flying cars have. The problem isn't getting something aloft. The problem is getting something aloft that can do something useful and do it reliably and economically. Batteries are (currently) heavy and they stay heavy no matter their charge state.

    Another problem. So let's say it can g

  • Puddle-jumper airlines need to make multiple flights back and forth. Can't include an 8 hour recharge time. Maybe that would work for some sort of charter plane instead of private jets where the executives will be on the ground overnight or something.

  • How much does a 900 kWh battery weight? Google tells me that a Tesla battery pack of approx 90 kWh weights 1,200 pounds. My solar calculator tells me it would take ten of them to get to 900 kWh, resulting in a weight of 12,000 pounds. If use a little rounding and say our electric plane can hold 10 people, that's about 1,200 pounds of fuel-weight for each passenger. I should probably double that since this electric plane has half the range of a turboprop.

    Is anyone familiar enough with turboprops weights

  • The nine seater is similar to Beechcraft 1900D [wikipedia.org] Empty weight = 4700 kg, Fuel= 2000 kg, payload= 2800 kg. Typically 50% of the empty weight is structure, and 50% is the powerplant. Thus we have 4350 Kg for the engine and fuel. This is the mass budget we have battery + motor.

    Tesla model 3 battery pack [google.com] is 475 Kg for 75 kWh. Works out to 5700 kg. So we are already 1350 kg over the limit, and we have not added the motor yet. So what to do?

    Tesla pack has active cooling and is designed for automotive use and

  • I think it's another claim by another overoptimistic purveyor of electric dreams just solar feakin' roadways.

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