Alice, the world’s first all-electric passenger aircraft, is just weeks away from her first flight.
Air travel is far from environmentally friendly, as a way to travel. Strictly talking about fuel, the industry average is approximately 51 gallons of fuel per passenger, or the rough equivalent of that same passenger driving a hybrid car by themselves. Put two passengers in that hybrid, or four in a typical SUV, and cars beat planes handily for fuel efficiency. We tend to assume that bulk travel is always the most efficient, but it’s just not true when it comes to flying.
Electric air travel is where the industry is pinning its hopes for a greener future.
The nine-seat Alice debuted in 2019, and has been in testing ever since. Developed by the Israeli company Eviation, the prototype uses battery technology virtually the same as an electric car or a cell phone. For 30 minutes of charging, the plane can fly about an hour, or 440 nautical miles. Her max cruising speed is 280 miles an hour, slow for a passenger plane but adequate. So far, the first Alice has come off the assembly line and has spent the last few months in low-speed taxi tests, trying out its own power while ground teams monitor systems like steering and braking. Next will come high-speed taxi tests, which simulate take-off condition, and then hopefully, the first flight tests.
Eviation’s focus is entirely electric aircraft, but they’re hardly the only company looking at a fuel-free future. NASA gave out a quarter of a billion dollars in grants last year to GE and magniX to develop their own electric planes, and Boeing has invested twice that in Wisk Aero, whose still-in-design planes will be not only all-electric but self-piloting as well.
“The stumbling block is the battery technology just like with cars, but more so in airplanes [because of weight],” said Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero. “As soon as we have better battery technology, which I suspect will be in two or three years, that’s when all these electric airplanes will eventually come.”
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