Aircraft of the future: The race for electric aviation | DW News 

I like that the design allows to swap batteries in a relatively easy way. There is lots to love about this airplane

Every time battery tec gets an upgrade the plane will just get better

Glad to see it finally about to be operational. Note, for the operator, much lower maintenance costs are as important as lower fuel cost.

6:25 CCS2 charging.

This is interesting from the perspective of many smaller, regional airports and their proximity to residential areas. Regulations in the US prevent them from being used more due to noise and air pollution. This could take the air brakes off an entire market segment. I wish more folks would/could look past their cynicism and see that it solves problems other than promising to lower our collective carbon footprint - even though that is important, and if this helps with that, heck yea!

Beautiful, but please stop everyone talking about zero-emission. Production of batteries and energy for electric vehicles is NOT zero emission! Considering all four stages of product live, for example the Tesla car starts to be "eco" only after 200.000km range in relation to combustion engine vehicles.

They can also due mid flight recharge with drone recharge interception like they refuel for jet fuel aircraft. I’m working on this technology with other companies and investors $

Very cool, that particular plane shape doesn't look really like something optimal for cargo but it's a good start anyway, can't wait to see how DHL will operate them !

the average turnaround time for a domestic flight is usually around 45 minutes to 1 hour the ground Crew will say you want watt

I want to hear one.

Thank you DW for reporting on this

400 km is not 400 miles.

The application of Alice in its current iteration is now for anyone that Travele any islands anywhere.

Great development.

Have you notice that there are a lot of short haul flights between European States and also within Japan inter-cities airport as well (be it passenger or freight flights) ?

Love it, but I'd have gone for swap in/out batteries. Getting the required charging infrastructure in places like the Caribbean could be tricky, the power needed will be sizeable, especially with multiple aircraft.

There is a big issue with winter and summer at high altitude plus heating cabin and pressurization. and anti-icing etc That takes a lot of electrical juice.

Good going, but renewable electricity must be increased big time!

I wonder what the tipping point for battery density needs to be for it to match the weight of the fuel put into something like a 747? 500Wh/kg? 750Wh, 1000Wh, 2000Wh? I mean the max fuel weight is 184,000Kg (230k litres) so that's a lot of potential battery capacity. Just a curious thought if anyone had a rough idea?

With this they’ll be less maintenance and less engine failures in flight ✈️ and most importantly no post crash fires 😊

Low noise is massively important for passenger planes

Wonderful to see electric planes and hope they go mass market soon. I take a 30-minute flight on a regular basis, which is ~150 miles, which these electric planes would be perfect for.

Well it was nice to hear about this advance in electric powered aircraft. However you could have shown a flight take off!!

if electricity can do the job but battery is too heavy, is it possible to make a hybrid version that can put a small engine as generator, like hybrid car. the turbine should be run smartly to safe fuel/electricity to deal with high torque and low torque. and use ordinary fuel to generate electricity so a longer range is possible.

An aircraft that uses coal powered electricity from the utility company probably isn't carbon neutral.

How comes the engines have in inlet and exhaust?

Are they publicly listed on the stock exchange?

Is the 460 km, like the cars can drive "460" (unless you go to the highway)

I find it interesting that there are no solar panels on the plane, solar panel technology is also growing in leaps and bounds, which could at the very least lower fuel times, in exchange for a slight weight penalty. I have also long thought that, electrically assisted jet engines would be extremely helpful in lowering fuel burn in the high emission takeoff phase of the flight and to some extent during cruise.

400km means about an hour of flight . . . hmmm . . however, does the window pop?

I have an idea that could extend flight time.

That’s brilliant! Shall we connect?

Turn it back into a turboprop and you’ll have a high selling aircraft. Next iteration of the Piaggio

I do like this aircraft's cute almost child's toy like shape to its airframe! 🐤

Great idea, great plane i hope this company succeeds 👍

500kw/kg at pack level is what we need

Does the cargo version need a pilot ?

In Europe routes under 350 km has largely vanished cause of the dense rail network.

Beautiful plane

Hydrogen fuel cell: Am I A Joke To You

It is interesting that a company is now working on getting FAA certification for an electric airplane. Unfortunately a number of the problems that electric cars have, these electric airplanes will have the same problems. One problem is the mining of all the materials, such as lithium, nickel and cobalt that are needed for the batteries has environmental impacts. Also as the airplane gets older its travel range will decrease. Also airports will need to add all this electrical plane charging infrastructure. Also like electric cars this will increase the demand for electricity and more electricity generating stations will need to be added some that burn natural gas, and fuel oil to generate electricity. Also we have had electric car batteries undergo thermal runaway and start on fire. This problem can occur with electric airplanes. Also these airplanes will not run well in cold weather with cold batteries. Also the travel range of these airplanes will always be considerably less than airplanes running on jet fuel and aviation gas. So electric airplanes are not a completely nice thing.

One would expect a more sailplane approach with an electric plane. 400km range seems very optimistic.

For island hoppers electric planes are perfect today. For longer routes a bit more research is needed but it will get there eventually. Transcontinentals are a bit trickier, that's likely not going to change anytime soon

Of all the people being interviewed, I trust the opinion of the pilot the most, as his life LITERALLY depends on a plan that he can trust. If he trusts it, I will trust it.

Really happy to see this on the one hand, but equally, this will be an early waypoint along the way to planes that have significantly better capabilities. Just bring it out asap, and lets get the revolution going.

How are we going to generate the electricity to charge this beauty? Nuclear power is "evil". Hydroelectric is "evil". Wind and solar? Clean, until you have to dispose of the used gear. And very few people want them in their "backyard". Otherwise, this new aircraft is way cool.

All ferries and boats including bigger boats are going to be electric soon

The question stays: In the majority of the US, electricity comes from burning fossil fuels therefore, charging an aircraft by electric power that was produced while burning fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases doesn't completely solve the issue. What can be done to avoid or mitigate this?

How exciting, that's my state aswell!

I am curious how traffic control will adjust, if we end up with more smaller aeroplanes with less capacity in the air at any given time. Hope the ev- aviation will work out. Glad to see we are getting past the energy density problem, at least for the shorter distance flights.

Amazing

In New South Wales Australia, you cannot use the word zero emissions any more and advertising because the competition watchdog quite rightly said that it is not true.

I am so excited about Alice. I wanted to purchase an Alice and start an airline for flights to & from Tacloban city & Cebu. Unfortunately my significant other, noted my failure in converting gas trikes to e-trikes and said no . . . I can still see us flying back & forth 6-8 flights/day . . . fly electric, save the planet!

How much do the batteries weigh and how long do they last? How much diesel was burned to mine the materials for them? What are the battery fire suppression systems? What is the battery performance at high altitude/cold temperature?

Super interesting. This plane ought to have very low operational costs. There a lots of areas where ground based transport is not always effective. Regions as diverse as Norway and Africa both spring to mind. Aside from speed of travel, air transport benefit from not requiring expensive infrastructure between A and B, unlike high-speed rail. Many very-high energy density (mass-based) batteries are not too keen on very high charging rates. So really, they should treat the batteries a bit nicer and have time for a coffee break and loading the plane sensibly.

I love comments sections like this. What chance does DHL have with its expertise in moving parcels, internal teams testing the approach and research relative to people who’ve seen this video?

I’m thinking not having to pay for aviation fuel also has to be attractive to companies whose profit margins are negatively impacted by fuel industry instability.

Battery fires are a major concern on electrical planes yet it was never mentioned. Also, the range will end up being a lot less than they are predicting in cold climates. Once they get all the issues figured out and all the power comes from nuclear power plants, electric planes may be viable for small planes and short distances. Wind and solar power is only zero emission if they have large storage batteries to store the electricity and supply power when there is no sun or wind.

For a second I thought I was seeing the Piaggio P180 Avanti.

Great , i want one :)

very very cool. love it. if they can hit 800km range that would be awesome.

I doubt the viability of electric planes unless there comes a revolution in battery technology. We can still hope for the best!

following the nature of aircraft (fly as much as possible) the charging cycle must be crazy, need a battery that can cope with that cycle

Zero emissions???Depends where the power to charge the battery came from.And how much was emitted in it’s,and its batteries construction!

Not vertical take off capability. Needs longer runway strips EVTO. Even so, there’s a market presence, but not as large as it could have been going vertical take off!

Considering DHL high charges for parcel delivery, any transportation costs are peanuts.

Yes! Much Better.

Check out Bye Aerspace electric airplane!

Curious as to why it’s not a pusher design.

Good to see new technology in aviation..... Hope new battery tech will come in and able to mass produce bigger planes.....

Ships and Cars are releasing more CO² than Aircrafts so what is stated in the video is incorrect. Aeroplanes are releasing 3% of all co² in the world. Ships, Industry, and roads vehicles are releasing a lot more

Why don't they say the truth up front. IT IS CHEAPER !!!. Jet Fuel is friggen expensive. The maintenance is a fraction of the price.

Get taylor swift one of these asap

Shocking!!!!

Hopefully battery technologies get lighter to improve passenger or freight availability.

Can you imagine a future of aircraft like this powered by Quantumscape Lithium Metal batteries, charged by perovskite solar cells stored energy in ESS tech Iron Flow Batteries. This would be a truly green operation!

fabulous . now electrify tractors , combines , and trucks . food is more important than trips !

There may be no specific emissions but i doubt that it uses green electricity using no aluminum , copper , resins , mined no lithium and other exotic minerals and did not have to move 100's of tons of overburden - it would interesting how long it would take to pay back the real unknown costs to the environment - interesting concept though

still someone believes that ev is just a car with battery instead of oil? Behind EV it means everything can be changed, plane, ship, robot ….

Any ice protection? That’s a VFR range, so pretty limiting.

electrical aviation companies should also experiment putting small turbo petrol engines in electric planes to generate electricity which can be run during flying it may charge batteries enough while flying 400km so that it can fly 100km more

Definitely best to start with freight.......

This aircraft has areospace abillitys that have eletric airspace and stol

How long does it take to charge the plane or its battery if it’s removed for swap?

I'd swap out 1/2 of the pack space with an aluminum air battery. that would gain you cross country performance.

That plane should have a parachute system for the unforeseen emergency.

Stockton Rush!?

LOL is the creator of this plane Ted Beneke?? Bro looks straight out of breaking bad😆

this is awesome, just wonder how much battery does one need to use current electric battery technology to power a 747? even if it s feasible, is the safety of current technology good enough?

Sorry. The range is too limiting. Batteries have a 45to1 disadvantage vs liquid fuels. Even taking account of electric motor efficiency, it’s still 15to1. That’s just too tall of a disadvantage to summit. A better solution is synthetic zero carbon liquid fuels.

Imagine If the Engine itself generates electricity then it will be very feasible and batteries can be kept for alternating power.

I have a few questions: 1. Does this industry (Electrical Planes) have any standards that they need to meet? Any control or accountability for the people they might be moving? 2. How much testing has it been done with this plane, in not so perfect conditions? Bad weather to test water reaction on the engines, how it reacts if hit by lighting or intensive magnetic environment, cold conditions where the batteries are not so "happy", what about short-circuits (since we noticed a considerable amount of electrical cars "burst in fire")? 3. Since anything on battery has a very "average' rating in terms of quantification, how reliable is the "miles left in the battery" gouge?

with the outside air temperature at -40c and lower at 60,000 ft. how will the battery go then

this is great but what is the range with full loading ?

Use graphene super capacitor battery technology as a game changer to win the game

Audio would’ve been nice.

So in a battery powered plane the dead weight of the battery doesn't change during energy usage unlike a plane with fuel....that's not an issue ?

cant wait to try this in MSFS, lol

When ever somebody talks about a zero emissions machine, it should also be required they note the emissions; to produce energy for the operation of the machine, to discover the materials to manufacture the machine, to produce the materials to manufacture the machine, to refine the materials, to transport the machine then finally to decommission and recycle the machine. We are blind without context.

how long it takes to recharge? future is clearly solid state battery, especially for safety reasons.