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The best lithium ion batteries have 300-400Wh/kg (some cells do up to 650Wh/kg with sulfur), electric motors can have up to 95% efficiency. Long range jets can

• ashtonkem 5y ago
  Source on 400-650Wh/kg? That’s significantly higher than what’s even reported in Tesla EVs, and I’m curious if that’s lab or production figures. Even going up to 400Wh/kg and 95% efficiency only yields 237 miles for a 737 equivalent, which isn’t enough. The top spec 777 would give you 677 miles on batteries, assuming 400Wh/kg. Enough to serve the LAX to SFO route, but a fairly limited vehicle all things considered, especially for the price and size. > Long range jets can fly 20,000 km with passengers. Sure, but economics begins to dominate here. There’s a reason I chose the 737 as a reference benchmark; it’s the gold standard of short to medium range airliner, and absolutely the vehicle that we should be aiming to minimize. If you have to pull out a 777 sized aircraft to service LAX -> SFO, then the price of tickets is going to begin rising significantly to cover the higher vehicle cost. I’m also genuinely quite doubtful that many airports can handle 100% of their jets switching over to wide body aircraft, which this would require, without significant improvements to the terminals and other facilities. If governments are forced to upgrade airports to save money on rail, I’d argue that that’s penny wise and pound foolish. All of this can be done, of course, but it really begins to erode all of the supposed cost savings over HSR.