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0 pointsnickik4y ago0 comments

We already have the first 8 seater that can go around 400 miles in testing. And that is using pretty conservative battery tech.

And there is a significant amount of potential optimization left.

Using the batteries as load structures is just one of them, that significantly changes the simplified calculation people do on density. There are many other ideas. The problem is a lot of investment and engineering is needed and to get a passenger plane threw the regulatory process, specially something as new as E-Plane is a gigantic project.

In the future battery tech will get significantly better in the next 10 years and rethinking the plane from the ground up with that technology in mind will do the trick and beat hydrogen.

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Robotbeat4y ago

Yeah, it is possible to do long haul (5000km or more) electric aircraft. Difficult, but possible. 500 miles wouldn’t even be a big challenge. And “number of passengers” doesn’t even appear on the Breguet Range Equation (modified for electric flight).

nickikOP4y ago

One thing that matters that people don't consider is that with EV, the operating cost will be lower, so it might actually make sense to switch to somewhat smaller planes flying more different routes.

I think a 30 person plane that can cover the most common routes in populated regions would beat any jet fueled airline in terms of cost.

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