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*With current battery technology We have no idea what batteries may be possible in the future. It may be a decade or a hundred years, but one day that may very

*With current battery technology We have no idea what batteries may be possible in the future. It may be a decade or a hundred years, but one day that may very well be possible.

Manuel_D 4y ago
A battery powered plane is possible in the same vein that a fusion powered plane is possible - it's not at all possible with current technology and anything in the foreseeable future.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  There are battery electric "regional commuter" two-seater planes on sale today. There's a 9-seater prototype that has completed short hop test flights [1]. Right now almost all of that is short-hop, but the excitement in that growing industry is that may disrupt the economics of even long range jet flights before long. (Not just "foreseeable future" but "sooner than you think".) (The efficiencies of battery electric for planes is apparently really interesting: that battery motor full torque access apparently a game changer for some types of flight dynamics. Or so I've heard.) [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/largest-electric-plane-yet-completed-its-first-flight-it-s-n1221401 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/largest-electri...
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > The aircraft flew at more than 100 mph to an altitude of around 2,500 feet, made a few turns and then landed after 28 minutes This isn't going to disrupt any kind of airline traffic. Battery energy density needs to improve by at least an order of magnitude - probably two - before it has any significant aerospace application outside of drones.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      Already practical for some applications but needing work to more, even possibly a lot of work, is still a vast difference from "never in the foreseeable future". Regional planes that only travel 30 minutes to an hour and do so cheaper and more efficiently than gas/diesel equivalent planes can still massively disrupt the big passenger airlines. It used to be that the airlines had a wider mixture of 30 minute/1 hour flights on smaller commuter planes to smaller "regional" airports before the economies of scale of jet engines pushed everything bigger (fewer flights below 1 hour in distance; more "hub-and-spokes" centralization; etc). A return of cheap, efficient short 9 or so passenger commuter flights could massively disrupt today's passenger airlines and their logistics, not just tomorrow's. If electric efficiencies also manage to scale to the bigger flights, who knows what will happen, but it is something to watch that there's already practical disruption implications even before scaling it up that big.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        No, it's not practical for any application - at least none besides drones. A 737 has 150-200 seats, this would entail 17 separate 9-seater electric planes - each of which needs its own pilot - to substitute one regional jet. Ticket price would have to be extremely high just to fulfill the labor cost of operating the aircraft, because of this high staff to passenger ratio. There's also no mention of how long it took to recharge these batteries after the 30 minute flight - a plane that needs to sit for several hours to recharge between each 30 minute flight is not going to yield a return on investment.
        Retric 4y ago
        Most short regional flights use tiny aircraft. ~9 seaters are surprisingly common in the island hopping industry. Labor costs are a non issue because the flights are so short. 2 hours of labor from people making 90k split 9 ways is 10$. And of course scaling up makes aircraft more efficient so you could get a slightly longer range from a 50 or 200 seat variant. The reasonable target with current technology and fuel reserves seems to be about 300 miles, which covers a surprising fraction of all trips.

*With current battery technology We have no idea what batteries may be possible in the future. It may be a decade or a hundred years, but one day that may very well be possible.

Manuel_D 4y ago

A battery powered plane is possible in the same vein that a fusion powered plane is possible - it's not at all possible with current technology and anything in the foreseeable future.

WorldMaker 4y ago
There are battery electric "regional commuter" two-seater planes on sale today. There's a 9-seater prototype that has completed short hop test flights [1]. Right now almost all of that is short-hop, but the excitement in that growing industry is that may disrupt the economics of even long range jet flights before long. (Not just "foreseeable future" but "sooner than you think".) (The efficiencies of battery electric for planes is apparently really interesting: that battery motor full torque access apparently a game changer for some types of flight dynamics. Or so I've heard.) [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/largest-electric-plane-yet-completed-its-first-flight-it-s-n1221401 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/largest-electri...
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > The aircraft flew at more than 100 mph to an altitude of around 2,500 feet, made a few turns and then landed after 28 minutes This isn't going to disrupt any kind of airline traffic. Battery energy density needs to improve by at least an order of magnitude - probably two - before it has any significant aerospace application outside of drones.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Already practical for some applications but needing work to more, even possibly a lot of work, is still a vast difference from "never in the foreseeable future". Regional planes that only travel 30 minutes to an hour and do so cheaper and more efficiently than gas/diesel equivalent planes can still massively disrupt the big passenger airlines. It used to be that the airlines had a wider mixture of 30 minute/1 hour flights on smaller commuter planes to smaller "regional" airports before the economies of scale of jet engines pushed everything bigger (fewer flights below 1 hour in distance; more "hub-and-spokes" centralization; etc). A return of cheap, efficient short 9 or so passenger commuter flights could massively disrupt today's passenger airlines and their logistics, not just tomorrow's. If electric efficiencies also manage to scale to the bigger flights, who knows what will happen, but it is something to watch that there's already practical disruption implications even before scaling it up that big.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      No, it's not practical for any application - at least none besides drones. A 737 has 150-200 seats, this would entail 17 separate 9-seater electric planes - each of which needs its own pilot - to substitute one regional jet. Ticket price would have to be extremely high just to fulfill the labor cost of operating the aircraft, because of this high staff to passenger ratio. There's also no mention of how long it took to recharge these batteries after the 30 minute flight - a plane that needs to sit for several hours to recharge between each 30 minute flight is not going to yield a return on investment.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Most short regional flights use tiny aircraft. ~9 seaters are surprisingly common in the island hopping industry. Labor costs are a non issue because the flights are so short. 2 hours of labor from people making 90k split 9 ways is 10$. And of course scaling up makes aircraft more efficient so you could get a slightly longer range from a 50 or 200 seat variant. The reasonable target with current technology and fuel reserves seems to be about 300 miles, which covers a surprising fraction of all trips.