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They are probably not going to take off (pun intended) any time soon. Just fuel reserve requirements alone are about the full range they have. I suspect hybrid

They are probably not going to take off (pun intended) any time soon. Just fuel reserve requirements alone are about the full range they have. I suspect hybrids will be developed first. Basically an APU sending power to the main motor + a relatively small battery. The 'APU' can be relatively compact and deliver a lot of power, with less engineering requirements (can place it anywhere, doesn't need to interface with a prop). If it fails you have some emergency battery power. Electric motors are incredibly strong and have very few moving parts, so reliability is higher. They are also light. Net net, there's some complexity and the combined equipment may be heavier (may! existing powerplants are some heavy beasts) but there's probably advantages. Certification would be horrendous, I imagine.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Yeah BEV / Teslamania obscures the fact that what automotive REALLY should have done was hybrids from year 2005+ for virtually every vehicle as the first step. Instead, they are doing the great leap to full electric. In my vision a compact rotary (that inside-out rotary patent a few years ago looked even more promising) would recharge the battery subsystem. Or maybe a fuel cell. The same would probably work for GA. Really, hybrids will work regardless of the battery tech for the next couple decades.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Yes, considering the first hybrid with the Prius was available as early as 1998, the car industry should have switched to hybrids in the early 2000s. But unfortunately they didn't. Just keeping selling pure combustion engined cars was far too profitable. I think Tesla did indeed play a huge role in pushing full electric cars. Which today is of course the correct technology for most applications as it skips the combustion engine completely. Hybrid planes would be quite attractive, but of course the certification bareer which might be too large
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    I thought going directly to BEV was a good plan, but then someone on this site pointed out that if civilization needs to go to BEVs, and there is X supply of battery materials, should we use those in 100kwhr packs for full BEVs, or in 20 kwhr battery packs for PHEVs that will deliver 80-90% of trips electrified? So you effectively electrify 5x the number of cars... But, that opportunity has passed, at least we are moving towards electrification.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Yeah BEV / Teslamania obscures the fact that what automotive REALLY should have done was hybrids from year 2005+ for virtually every vehicle as the first step. Instead, they are doing the great leap to full electric. In my vision a compact rotary (that inside-out rotary patent a few years ago looked even more promising) would recharge the battery subsystem. Or maybe a fuel cell. The same would probably work for GA. Really, hybrids will work regardless of the battery tech for the next couple decades.

_ph_ 4y ago
Yes, considering the first hybrid with the Prius was available as early as 1998, the car industry should have switched to hybrids in the early 2000s. But unfortunately they didn't. Just keeping selling pure combustion engined cars was far too profitable. I think Tesla did indeed play a huge role in pushing full electric cars. Which today is of course the correct technology for most applications as it skips the combustion engine completely. Hybrid planes would be quite attractive, but of course the certification bareer which might be too large
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  I thought going directly to BEV was a good plan, but then someone on this site pointed out that if civilization needs to go to BEVs, and there is X supply of battery materials, should we use those in 100kwhr packs for full BEVs, or in 20 kwhr battery packs for PHEVs that will deliver 80-90% of trips electrified? So you effectively electrify 5x the number of cars... But, that opportunity has passed, at least we are moving towards electrification.