3 ms·

4 passengers at 180 miles/hr for 60 minutes. For that, I’d guess they’d need upwards of 200 kW of battery, no? Not gonna happen until batteries give us 1000 W

by blendo 7y ago

4 passengers at 180 miles/hr for 60 minutes. For that, I’d guess they’d need upwards of 200 kW of battery, no? Not gonna happen until batteries give us 1000 Wh/kg or so. In year 2030, maybe.

walrus01 7y ago
They are doing the design and engineering work of the craft itself, as a separate thing from the batteries. I think a big assumption on the part of a lot of these is that the battery Wh/kg and Wh/litre ratio will dramatically improve in the future, and they'll be able to take those new batteries from their manufacturers and integrate it into their ready-to-go aircraft. Lots of other mechanical and airframe engineering work to do in the meantime while waiting for better batteries. Software/automation controls related to operating in busy air space. Stuff like the tilt rotor mechanism, avionics and radio systems, automated navigation, soundproofing, seats and interior, airframe carbon fiber layup, etc. They can create a finished and highly tested craft with all of the engineering problems solved for various subsystems except the batteries. I don't see any problem with designing something that currently only has 20 minutes of flight time with a battery that is X watt-hours capacity, N size, Y dimensions and Z weight. An aircraft manufacturer as we know it today doesn't manufacture a lot of the very complex and most costly subsystems of their craft. Best example would be small jet turbines, or petrol powered engines. They rely on engine manufacturing specialists for that. My theory is that it's unlikely a VTOL-air-taxi-manufacturer will become so vertically integrated that it manufactures its own special batteries. Similar to how a small business jet manufacturer today buys turbofan engines from engine-manufacturing-specialists, they'll be buying batteries from companies dedicated to the sole purpose of manufacturing high Wh/kg aircraft batteries. Provided that the new magical future battery can be similarly cooled and managed and will fit into the available specifications of "X times 5 watt hours", N, Y and Z, they can do all of the R&D except for the battery, and hope that the market and technology catch up with them to create a 80 minute flight time craft.

by blendo 7y ago

4 passengers at 180 miles/hr for 60 minutes. For that, I’d guess they’d need upwards of 200 kW of battery, no? Not gonna happen until batteries give us 1000 Wh/kg or so. In year 2030, maybe.

walrus01 7y ago

They are doing the design and engineering work of the craft itself, as a separate thing from the batteries. I think a big assumption on the part of a lot of these is that the battery Wh/kg and Wh/litre ratio will dramatically improve in the future, and they'll be able to take those new batteries from their manufacturers and integrate it into their ready-to-go aircraft. Lots of other mechanical and airframe engineering work to do in the meantime while waiting for better batteries. Software/automation controls related to operating in busy air space. Stuff like the tilt rotor mechanism, avionics and radio systems, automated navigation, soundproofing, seats and interior, airframe carbon fiber layup, etc. They can create a finished and highly tested craft with all of the engineering problems solved for various subsystems except the batteries. I don't see any problem with designing something that currently only has 20 minutes of flight time with a battery that is X watt-hours capacity, N size, Y dimensions and Z weight. An aircraft manufacturer as we know it today doesn't manufacture a lot of the very complex and most costly subsystems of their craft. Best example would be small jet turbines, or petrol powered engines. They rely on engine manufacturing specialists for that. My theory is that it's unlikely a VTOL-air-taxi-manufacturer will become so vertically integrated that it manufactures its own special batteries. Similar to how a small business jet manufacturer today buys turbofan engines from engine-manufacturing-specialists, they'll be buying batteries from companies dedicated to the sole purpose of manufacturing high Wh/kg aircraft batteries. Provided that the new magical future battery can be similarly cooled and managed and will fit into the available specifications of "X times 5 watt hours", N, Y and Z, they can do all of the R&D except for the battery, and hope that the market and technology catch up with them to create a 80 minute flight time craft.