Startup launches commercial electric plane business Gas is the biggest cost for airlines. The easiest way to reduce these costs? Don't use gas at all. That was the pitch from Wright Electric, a startup building an commercial passenger plane thatruns on batteriesand can handle flights under 300 miles. These short-haul trips make up 30 percent of all flights and a $26 billion market.(TechCrunch)
Hmph. The next headline will be "Elon Musk's Gigafactory Signs Contract To Supply Batteries For Electric Plane". TSLA jumps $75 on the news.
Wright Electric Tesla Are businesses just going to keep taking names of famous people in particular fields as their business names? What company names will be used in the coming years? Buffet Investments, Trump Debt Consolidation, Musk Marketing?
So jet fuel has somewhere between 60 and 120 times the energy density of the best lithium ion batteries we have today. That's before you take into account the significantly increased weight of an electric motor over a jet engine, a typical turbofan is 10KW/kg while a Prius motor is less than 2KW/kg. Also, it takes about 15 minutes to refuel a 737 after a 300 mile flight and turn time is money when it comes to short haul flights, ask Southwest who put great effort into shaving off seconds from turn time. You'd have to forklift a new battery pack in to turn this in any reasonable amount of turn time, requiring 2-3 packs per aircraft. Plus the fact that a lithium ion battery typically gets 1000 cycles, and Southwest is typically doing 9 cycles a day, so you're replacing 3 full packs a year per aircraft; that's big bucks. Finally, to top it off, they've also got some kind of crazy in-wing ducted fan concept going that's never been put into production anywhere before. We're going to have mass produced electric planes one day, and I'm really looking forward to it. The first one sure as heck isn't going to be a 150 seat 737 replacement and it isn't going to be from these guys who don't seem to have a business person with a lick of aviation experience on their team! I'm a startup guy all the way and love audacious dreamers, however these guys are beyond that into complete lala land.
Any startup, or new airline developer, or whomever, who is reported on by a reporter that refers to the fuel required to power a 737 commercial jet as needing "gas" has lost all credibility in my eyes, and will fail. It is not "gas". That is negative press. I looked at Wright Electric's website, and it is not much better over there. "Batteries:" Subpart #2. "If batteries do get a lot better in the next decade, our plane is fully-electric and has fantastic cost savings. See chart #2 below; a near-future jump to a chemistry like Li-Metal doesn’t." Um...Guys? The Lithium-ion and Lithium-hydride batteries that cause small fires in electronic devices, and the Lithium batteries that grounded, what was it, the entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners? And now you want to run the entire aircraft on these things? If all electrics on an all-electric airliner goes down, you're doing one thing...You're into an unpowered glide. At least with "gas" engines you may have one working, and can play with the "gas" throttles to monkey the plane to a safe place to land. Do NOT invest in the company called "Wright Electric". They be arrogant marketers I think. The physics currently do not work. How could they ever?
Maybe a hybrid could work better? Jet fuel for takeoff and switch to efficient electrics during flight.... you could probably get more distance that way as well...
Nope.. not going to work, the guy presenting doesn't wear a black turtle-neck or a velvety jacket over a t-shirt.
It's not like no one has thought about making the lithium ion battery more efficient. This has been an old problem. Also, if your electric car catches on fire, at least you can jump out and run to safety...can't really do that at 30k ft in the air.
I'll say one thing about Dealmaker's posts.... he always manages to send me down some interesting rabbit holes. https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/20/yc-demo-day-winter-2017/ My favorite is the Fitbit for cows.