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Just 10 years ago, nobody would have ever thought electric vehicles would be in mass production
Yet alone change the Auto industry
Today most car manufacturers are thinking about all-electric vehicles
Volvo is even saying that they may ditch diesel cars altogether and switch to hybrid and electric cars
What was once a pipe dream and impractical is now a reality in the auto industry
But now in the latter part of the 2010s the electric revolution is taking to the skies
Battery Tech is just getting good enough to allow several companies to roll out their fully electric aircraft into production
In this quick video, we'll take a look at the state of the art of fixed wing electric aircraft
Earlier the this year, the German firm Siemens just demonstrated a powerful electric aircraft that broke two old records
The first was a speed record
It was the fastest electric aircraft flying at a straight-line speed of 340 kilometers an hour
It also broke a climbing record rising from the ground to 3 kilometers in just over 4 minutes
It was also the first electric aircraft to air tow
The aircraft and extra '330LE' was able to do this thanks to a new generation of electric motors from Siemens
Weighing just 50 kilograms, the motor can produce 260 kilowatts,
about five times the power of comparable aircraft engines or about as much output as the original Tesla model S
Siemens plans to use this aircraft as a testbed for developing more in the future
Another company Pipistrel from Slovenia if getting ready to ship their fully electric light aircraft the 'Alpha Electro'
The Alpha Electro will be used for flight training purposes and takes 45 minutes to fully charge
The aircraft cuts overall costs of flight training by 70% from fuel savings
And the learning process is exactly the same as its petrol counterpart
Interestingly every tenth of a second, the system on the aircraft checks the batteries, monitoring their voltage and looking out for any faults
It can electronically disconnect parts of the battery if the system predicts a fault
Upon landing the propeller turns into a generator recharging about five percent of the battery
Yet another company, Aero Electric, is launching another all-electric plane called the 'Sun Flyer'
It has the same idea of reducing the cost of flight training
"This is really a history-making event
Aero Electric aircraft corporation has just unveiled a prototype of its new
all-electric Sun Flyer plane which could open up the skies to many more pilots"
By using electricity, they claim that the price goes down from $45 per flight hour down to $1 per flight hour, a real quantum leap
I think this use case makes the most sense for all electric air travel,
small planes, one to two passengers, and short trips from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
It would be good for scenic aerial tours short charter flights, or pilot training
So what are the advantages and disadvantages of electric propulsion?
Well the advantages are as follows
It's quieter, mechanically more efficient, and doesn't have any direct emissions
The disadvantages is the battery
The bottleneck really is with the battery energy density
it's just not good enough yet for long distance flight
In addition to this, with traditional aircraft, the more fuel you burn the lighter the craft gets,
But with electric aircraft, the batteries are essentially dead weight
This is where hybrid systems come into play
More so than cars, hybrid planes seem to be the sweet spot for air travel
They can be used for medium distances, flying for about two to four hours
Airbus is working on a hybrid plane to go on to production by 2030
This comes after successfully testing their own fully-electric aircraft dubbed the 'E-fan', a project that ran from 2014 to last month
During its testing the E-fan was claimed to be the first electric plane to cross the English Channel
With help from Siemens, both Pipistrel and Airbus are in the works of creating hybrid motors
But the hybrid motor from Pipistrel is already in testing phases and makes about 200 kilowatts
So in conclusion, electric aircraft have been in the experimental stages for many decades
But were woefully underpowered and largely had the same issues as electric cars before Tesla got the ball rolling
Now practical electric aircraft are right around the corner
In the next year or two, they'll be fully in service but only for short-range low passenger volume situations
But it seems like hybrids aren't far off and this could open the door to low emission mid-range flights
with the benefits of both an electric motor and traditional power
And with that, that wraps up the video
This was just a quick look at the state of the art of electric fixed-wing aircraft
Thanks for watching, this has been Dagogo, you've been watching ColdFusion
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Cheers guys have a good one
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