The airframe of airplanes is surprisingly lightweight. Engine(s) can easily be around 25% of the (empty) weight, and on anything with decent range, the fuel dom

The airframe of airplanes is surprisingly lightweight. Engine(s) can easily be around 25% of the (empty) weight, and on anything with decent range, the fuel dominates. Both necessitates a lot of supporting infrastructure. The airplane can probably pack battery cells much denser than Tesla. Tesla uses active, liquid-based cooling; an airplane could employ the airstream for that. Plus I expect a lot less of battery heating; while the capacity is 9x of Model 3, the engine power (thus electrical drain) is around just 3x of Model 3. [1] Also the metal shield under the battery can probably be done away with. As others pointed out, electric engines are much different beast than any hydrocarbon burning ones. You need less support structure (for starters, less vibrations) and also much less auxiliary gear; think of all the cooling systems (either liquid cooling or flaps & openings & shrouds to direct air around); fuel tankage, pipes, valves, pumps & booster pumps; electric generator & possibly hydraulic pumps, and lots and lots of wires to both send electricity and control signals. As electric engines are essentially low-maintenance, you'd save a bunch of weight on monitoring instrumentation & servicing access panels. Maybe i'm reading too much into the renders, but the engine- and prop cowls seem to be very tight fit; both lessening drag and also simply being smaller, lighter parts. Lastly, electric engines can typically be over-loaded way over their continuous power for well understood short stretches of time, facilitating extra power for prompt & safe take-off. Not so with piston or jet engines; the take-off power is typically maybe a dozen percent more than the rated continuous power, and that's about it. You end up carrying through the whole flight engines over-sized (and thus over-weight) just for the sake of take-off power. Small weights savings all over the airframe add up. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3#Specifications - 258 kW for Model 3 AWD, vs 3x260kW for the airplane.