Startup launches commercial electric plane business

Lee- said:
I am far from an expert on planes. Hell I've never even flown in one, but I was wondering -- are there any large weight savings from going electric that would partially offset the increase in weight from the batteries? Certainly the battery itself is a massive weight, but are there any significant (in weight) savings from components that would be unnecessary in an electric plane? I'd imagine the jet engines themselves are rather heavy, but I haven't a clue what the weight of an electric engine would be to deliver similar performance (could it be less?). There may be other components as well (ex an electric car doesn't need a transmission). Another key aspect to this is that traditionally battery technology has been focused on making it cheaper, denser, faster to charge, this kind of thing. Perhaps there's a less focused on battery technology that is horrible for speed of charge and energy density, but is rather good on weight. What about hydrogen rather than batteries for the energy storage? Just some things this thread made me think about.
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As I indicated in my first post on this, the weight of a jet engine per KW of energy it produces is substantially less than the weight of the electric motor that would replace it "a typical turbofan is 10KW/kg while a Prius motor is less than 2KW/kg"

More importantly, how the heck have you managed to never fly on an airplane!
 
Sig said:
I wouldn't be surprised to see batteries 90% cheaper in 15 years. I would be surprised to see them 98.4% lighter, which is what they'd have to be to match the energy density of Jet-A. And then you've still got to carry the expended weight around the whole flight rather than an average of half, so now they've got to be 99.2% lighter than they are today!
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That's my point. Lithium ion batteries have been around a long time and there's been tremendous market pressure to extract more storage efficiency out of them (first from laptops, then cell phones, and now cars). I think someday we'll get there, but the "battery" will likely be radically different from what we have today. Perhaps some type of super-capacitor. In the meantime, maybe they could fill a large balloon full of hydrogen to lift the plane and then also use the hydrogen to fuel the engine. :-)
 
fuel cells actually make sense here. Fast refuel, long range, you can sell the dangers of high pressure vessels to the public as well since you won't survive a crash land anyway.

Although electric motors still remain heavy and I keep reading the mass/energy is no better than batteries.
 
dealmaker said:
Boeing teams with JetBlue to fund startup's electric plane
Boeing Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp. are investing in a startupdeveloping an electric-powered aircraftwith the potential to transform short-haul flights. Zunum Aero is designing and building 10- to 50-seat planes for trips of 700 miles initially and as much as 1,000 miles by 2030.(Industryweek)
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Those links are dead but here's another https://qz.com/950730/tesla-for-the...-an-electric-plane-startup-called-zunum-aero/
An infinitely more reasonable concept and company, probably the reason why they got the investment. I'm guessing that Boeing at least is using this as a cheap way to get some out of the box engineering prototyping and dev at a much lower cost than doing it themselves. I've heard that the culture at Boeing is pretty stifling to a startup mentality as well, which you would expect from a big company that has only done evolutionary changes over the past 50 years. This may be a tacit recognition of that by the company, if so good on them.
 
Sig said:
Those links are dead but here's another https://qz.com/950730/tesla-for-the...-an-electric-plane-startup-called-zunum-aero/
An infinitely more reasonable concept and company, probably the reason why they got the investment. I'm guessing that Boeing at least is using this as a cheap way to get some out of the box engineering prototyping and dev at a much lower cost than doing it themselves. I've heard that the culture at Boeing is pretty stifling to a startup mentality as well, which you would expect from a big company that has only done evolutionary changes over the past 50 years. This may be a tacit recognition of that by the company, if so good on them.
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Well, the startup is in Seattle. Impressive management pedigree, I'm sure they are all tied to BA somehow or the other.

My question is, looking at this picture (realizing its a rendering) is where does the combustion occur. Inside somewhere like an APU and then fixed to the fans via like a drone type axle?
There does appear to be an air intake between the V-tail
dims.jpg
 
vanzandt said:
Well, the startup is in Seattle. Impressive management pedigree, I'm sure they are all tied to BA somehow or the other.

My question is, looking at this picture (realizing its a rendering) is where does the combustion occur. Inside somewhere like an APU and then fixed to the fans via like a drone type axle?
There does appear to be an air intake between the V-tail
View attachment 172451
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I'm guessing it's much like a helicopter, turboshaft engines to a transmission which changes direction and sends it out to the prop. Couple an electric motor with a ratchet type freewheeling unit (again like a helicopter), and you can power it with either one.
The only suspect piece to me is the ducted props. Per my criticism of the previous concept, if you're on the bleeding edge of technology in something like aerospace than don't try to be on two or more bleeding edges at once if you can help it. If ducted props are better, then they're better for jet engine powered turboprops as well as a hybrid, so build a production ducted jet engine powered turboprop now, no need to wait for battery technology. Which may very well be what Boeing is thinking!
 
Sig said:
I'm guessing it's much like a helicopter, turboshaft engines to a transmission which changes direction and sends it out to the prop. Couple an electric motor with a ratchet type freewheeling unit (again like a helicopter), and you can power it with either one.
The only suspect piece to me is the ducted props. Per my criticism of the previous concept, if you're on the bleeding edge of technology in something like aerospace than don't try to be on two or more bleeding edges at once if you can help it. If ducted props are better, then they're better for jet engine powered turboprops as well as a hybrid, so build a production ducted jet engine powered turboprop now, no need to wait for battery technology. Which may very well be what Boeing is thinking!
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Well they are certainly at the forefront of cutting edge aviation...:D
Bell-X-22-experimental-aircraft.jpg
 
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