I don't think so. Even in cars, it does not represent a "major" fire risk. Combustible fuels used to present a fire risk, but we learned to deal with them. The same will happen with batteries. Battery packs have to pass certification, just like any other system. So, in the end, it's no more dangerous than Jet A, Avgas, or biofuels.
@@leoarc1061Nonsense. The nature of lithium fires mean that they present an exponentially higher risk in ALL applications. Aviation is no exception. We are already seeing building owners being denied insurance cover for the storage and or charging of electric road vehicles, including cars, vans, busses, scooters and bicycles. Insurance companies’ decisions are governed by risk, and the level of potential losses for their underwriters. When something as humble as an electric scooter or bicycle can totally prevent you from obtaining insurance cover, there are serious and fundamental issues with the very nature of those products. Without totally disingenuous WEF lobbying, and taxpayer funded government incentives, no one would be even considering electric aircraft.
@@leoarc1061Nonsense. The nature of lithium fires mean that they present an exponentially higher risk in ALL applications. Aviation is no exception. We are already seeing building owners being denied insurance cover for the storage and or charging of electric road vehicles, including cars, vans, busses, scooters and bicycles. Insurance companies’ decisions are governed by risk, and the level of potential losses for their underwriters. When something as humble as an electric scooter or bicycle can totally prevent you from obtaining insurance cover, there are serious and fundamental issues with the very nature of those products. Without totally disingenuous WEF lobbying, and taxpayer funded government incentives, no one would be even considering electric aircraft.
@@leoarc1061 @G58 says the nature of lithium is very different. Fuels it is a matter of protecting them from an ignition source and interestingly enough liquid fuels will conform to the shape of their container so their containers can be designed to deform and to self seal. Batteries on the other hand have their own ignition source and cannot tolerate much deformation before shorts can occur. That is the major risk in a crash and for this reason EVs that get into relatively minor accidents by ICE vehicle standards often get totaled as it is difficult to ascertain battery integrity even though they may have not caught fire at the time of accident. Lithium is so reactive that such fires burn with extremely high heat making it practically impossible to isolate an individual cell enough to limit spread.
Boiled down: the issue with electric aircraft is not the motor, it’s the low energy density of battery technology. The foreseeable markets are trainers and air taxis. No airliners.
G'day, To everybody who Whinges about the Alleged "Low Energy Density" of Lithium Batteries...; One might say, "Pull your silly Little Head In...; and Instead of trying to compare the Energy density Of a Lithium Battery to that of a Petrol Tank...; Try comparing Apples with Apples Instead of Apples with Bottles of Brandy. Before opening one's Yap to complain about Lithium being Wimpy in the Energy density "Stakes" (compared to Multi-Chain Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons...) ; Compare today's Lithium Batteries with NiMh, NiFe, NiCad, or Pb/H2-SO4... And, be it noted that there is Zero "advantage" in using Lithium UNLESS the Battery is to be Mobile...; Golf-Carts still use Lead/Acid open Water-boxes - and Stand-alone Houselighting setups use sealed Lead/Acid Gel-Cells... Lithium Batteries have an INSANELY HIGH Energy Density, Actually, In real life... Ask ANY FIREFIGHTER... Your Problem is that you be were Bred, born, raised-up and Trained to Believe that you have a "Right" to access Mind-buggaringly Stupid amounts of Potential & Kinetic Energy-Release, at the Push of a Button - And to regard that as being "Perfectly Normal"... Regardless of the Environmental Cost & destruction incurred so that your Access to Energy-Release has become Habitually Reflexive & Unthinking. I ride a 3,500 Watt 60-Volt road-registered Motocross Bike to town for "Small Groceries" 35 Km return trips, and a Stand-Alone Solar Setup is in the Pipeline, to replace the Petrol Generator, currently, doing duty (!). If only Oz' CASA had not Repealed 95.10, I would rebuild, and Electrify My old, crashed VJ-24w (Ultralight Motorglider) using a Motor, Battery & Speed-Controller from the Talaria Sting (L1-e) (Motorbike). If you want to be able to Fly SOMETHING, At least a little bit, When the petrol becomes too expensive to burn, Or goes out of Fashion Or becomes unobtainable ; Then An Electric ANYTHING Will shit from a very great height, All over your Garden Ornament, sitting Where a Fossil-burning Machine Used to be... Don't worry about "Oh, ah, ewwie, Look at what the Shiny new E-thingie Simply Cannot do-ie... Boo-hoo & Fooey !" Or, words to that effect. Such is life, Have a good one. Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
@@valentinuiliqnow6198 G'day, Hydrogen is the Smallest Atom in the Periodic Table of Elements. To store the stuff is Prohibitively Thermally Ineffective as a Way to store Energy. The Energy cost of Cryogenically refrigerating Hydrogen and watching it Boil-off... While it MIGRATES through the Teflon Linings in any Steel Storage Tanks - Infiltrating the Steel, and Turning the Structural Steel into BRITTLE Crystalline Hydrogen Isotopes thereof. After that, The Tanks fail under Pressure. Hydrogen Fuel Cells are ONLY 60% EFFICIENT At turning (Distilled) Water & Electricity into H2 + O2 in separated streams ; and then after that they're ONLY 60% Efficient at turning the Stored Glasses back into Current + Water.... So, 60% of 60% makes Hydrogen 36% Efficient at taking Electricity, storing it as separated Explosive Gasses and recombining them to furnish Current at some later time. All the while the Stored Hydrogen is Slowly migrating through the walls of the Structure and eating Energy to refrigerate it. The Lithium Battery in my Talaria Sting (L1-e) is 95% efficient at accepting & storing & returning Electric current My old Lead acid Lighting Batteries are 90% Efficient at storing Current. Hydrogen is a fit Fuel Only for Government funded Boodgoggles like Skyrockets trying to Run away from The Reality Of Life On Earth. Wake up to yourself...(?) ! Such is life, Have a good one. ;-p Ciao !
Excellent and thought provoking. Our electric motor technology is 21st century. The deal breaker is a portable source of electricity that weighs less than 6.5 lbs/gal.
There is no overhaul of the Velis battery. It is a euphemism. The battery TBO is actually ‘new battery from Pipistrel’ at over €20k a pop. Also there is a main bearing change required at….each 200 hrs! Given the battery replacement costs more than an overhauled eg Lyco 0-235, and has to be done 3 times as often, plus the frequent main bearing change, there is no way maintenance ends up cheaper than ICE. After amortisation of the extra cost of maintenance across the TBO, the hourly operating cost is more than a C-152 at eg current UK electricity vs avgas rates. Nonetheless this is an area that will most likely improve somewhat when more operational data becomes available from the nascent electric fleet to justify increasing the conservative TBOs - assuming electricity rates do not significantly increase (big if). On endurance of the Velis: the ‘50 minutes plus reserve’ is a special case allowed in Europe whereby when remaining within sight of the airport the final reserve can be 10 minutes (note, this applies to pistons as well, it is not a dispensation for electric). This does not apply in the USA. In reality, with the 30 minute reserve, you end up with about 20 minutes endurance with 2 POB, a little more with a single pilot. So the point to point performance becomes the nearest airport you can reach in 20 minutes at cruise power. The general public, even a lot of pilots, tend to have a hopelessly optimistic belief in the near to medium term capabilities of all-electric aircraft. This is most likely informed by the arrival of the practical EV and the bad assumption that the same results can be transferred to airplanes.
What you said at the end is what I wanted to convey. Just because it works for cars doesn't automatically make it suitable for planes. If a new battery is €20k, it's almost the cost of a brand new Rotax 912.
@@grekiki Well, you might approach 30 minutes plus 30 minute reserve with a single pilot but with 2 POB you have more induced drag. Embry Riddle University in Florida have a Velis and my 20 minutes came from what they reported, so I think we can consider that to be accurate and unbiased information.
@@LetsGoAviatedoes it work for cars? I'm far from convinced of that either. You're still driving around with literally a ton of battery, then there's the matter of infrastructure and power generation. Here in the UK there are millions of homes without off road parking, and we have to import electricity at peak times as it is, let alone coping with the prospect of 40,000,000 light vehicles, plus commercials.
Aircraft have a larger take-off weight than their landing weight, this is to stop shock damage to landing gear when landing. This is achieved by burning up fuel in flight. An electric aircraft would be the same weight when it landed and when it took off. You forget the totally destructive explosive and combustion capability if lithium batteries... often demonstrated at ground level by BEV....
Thank you Jaco...thought provoking indeed. I personally do not see electrical powered aircraft to the scale of Part 121 or 135 operations and limited Part 91 operations, I believe to limit emissions, which was the objective of green power, will fall into the Hydrogen combustion category. Toyota have basically shelved electrical power for hydrogen combustion power
I think battery "overhauls" would simply be an audit of cell health and the replacement of any dead cells, which, if the pack is designed properly (not a small design challenge) could take it from a remanufacturing process to simply an automated process.
Great video. The big problem is not with the electric motors but rather, as you said, the battery technology. Many of the small electrics, like the Electro, are being pushed for use as trainers. In my humble opinion, they seem to be marginally suitable for that role for several reasons. First, the 50 minute endurance is not a particularly long training session. I looked back at my log book and only 20% of my training related flights would have fit in 50 minutes, fewer if you factor in the takeoff. You speculated that the reserve was 30 minutes and I would agree with that as the specs stated "VFR reserve" which is enough time to get to your destination +30 minutes. The specs also stated that the cruising speed was 90 KCAS (90 knots calibrated airspeed). With 50 minutes endurance that yields a distance of only 75 nautical miles less power used in takeoff and climb to cruising altitude. A Light Sport license requires a 75 nautical mile cross country flight with landings at two points. So the second point is that an Electro would be hard pushed to make that required cross country flight on a single charge. The final point is that, as you mentioned, operation of an electric motor is much easier and you don't have to worry about mixture, carb heat, warm up, throttle response or switching fuel tanks. While that is all true, it also means that a student trained solely on electric would then not be trained to manage an ICE engine in an aircraft. That is something that said student would almost certainly encounter and, at least initially, their trained habits and instincts would be out of sync with the power source of the aircraft they were operating which could result in a problem. While I am not against electric cars or aircraft, the battery technology has a long way to go before it can match the capabilities of an internal combustion engine.
I agree with the points you raise here. I just want to point out that in this ‘50 minute plus reserves’, it is not the expected 30 minutes but an obscure EASA rule that reserve can be just 10 minutes (!) for flights remaining within sight of the airport. Embry Riddle University have a Velis and they reliably report an endurance of about 20 minutes with 2 POB plus requisite FAA 30 minute reserve. So point to point performance, or anything BVR of the field with 2 POB is maximum 20 minutes, a little more for the single pilot.
That they are referring to an EASA rule makes perfect sense. Thanks for making that point. The info you quoted on Velis really highlights the current cross country limitations of the battery technology Even though there are seven small airports near my home airport, only two would be within comfortable range and that would not make the aircraft attractive to a potential buyer.
Here in the UK at least many airfield are installing Aerovolt DC chargers, but even if a site doesn’t have power many cars now come with V2L (Vechicle2Load) functionality, which could be used as an emergency charger if necessary at the slower AC charging rates. There are other options like Kempower mobile chargers if a site doesn’t want to go to fully installed chargers but wants to provide DC charging options
Thinking back to my CFI days...and I'm imagining trying to get up and out to the practice area, trying to cram all the maneuvers in, and back to the field, on a hard 50min endurance limit. Six lessons a day, 6 days a week. It almost brings me to tears.
A 22 Kwh battery pack? An average electricity use of a household per day would be something like 3 Kwh. Soooo..... charging this tiny plane in one hour would cost as much electricity as 7 houses running their normale household for a whole day! If an airport starts using a few of these planes and tries to charge them simultaneously, the grid cannot cope. Now imagine charging a BIG airplane for a LONG trip. No matter how advanced the batteries, charging such a plane would cost as much energy as feeding an entire city.
Great insightful video! You mentioned many things I wouldn't considered. The "getthere-itis" is indeed a thing I wouldn't consider at first, and it's definitely an important aspect.
That thing about incentives holds no water, incentives in purchase of electric airplane doesn't affect final cost for the end user, it increases margin for the company for the specific service because it lowers live costs, certainly the specific service now it is niches because the reason you said, check the Canadian airplane company that switched to electric engines.
Incentives are to usually to push government agendas. It's basically paying people to do make purchasing decisions they wouldn't otherwise. Is it Harbor air? I did make a quick reference to them in the video. Besides the promises of converting their fleet, they only did one initially, then in 2023 converted a second. I'm of opinion they are operated the first one at a sizeable financial loss as it can carry fewer passengers per flight than the standard plane due to the heavy weight of the batteries. The second one was converted with lighter battery types but I don't know if they ever got it certified, probably. The only reason they can even make it work is because of their flights are very short, 30 minutes or less. The perfect company to go full electric in my opinion, assuming with lighter battery technology it will make a net profit per flight.
For the TBO figure of 500, I suspect that is just caution as it is still a relatively new technologies. Vehicles has the same concern initially limiting total mileage and charging cycles to say 80,000 miles and 500 charging cycles. The latest cars are coming with batteries rated for 1 million miles and 1000+ charging cycles. The longevity of the batteries has been a problem for the industry that was planning to recycle the batteries into home battery storage systems - they just can’t get enough of them because they are living on longer than expected. When EVs have battery problems it tends not to be the chemistry but the electronic controller circuit boards in a cell getting damaged from water ingress and broken cell housing seals from perished rubber, etc.
Hallo to the US, you are absolutely right. Even worse: at the reasently AERO 2024 exhibition there is raising some kind of hype towards electric driven flying objects of every kind. Nobody who pushes that industry calculates the amount of energy compared to the weights involved. Not only in GA-planes, but even in Paramotoring it does not make any scence when trying to get a flight time of more than 30 minutes. But there might be a usefull concept: Paramotoring in areas which tend to be noise sensitive combined with flying in upwinds and thermals just as a recreational sport. Staying up in the air without the engine, simply using it for the start. But overall, the available systems are much to expensive and come with all the flaws. So the only thing for electric enthusiasts is to wait until batteries are improving to a state that its weight to power figures are comparable to other propulsion solutions. Greetings, Marc
Absolutely, and I see a lot of new motorglider designs that are electric, which I think makes a bit of sense, since the motor is really only there to get you to thermals. It will need less batteries which will be lighter and the battery weight can be used as ballast.
I think that we are about 3 decades away from most newly acquired private planes being electric. As for commercial jets, we will have to wait a little longer for electric power units to be able to surpass the energy density of combustibles. This, of course, takes the assumption that batteries will continue to evolve at the current rate. If we start to get into diminishing returns, the story will be rather different. In such case, biofuels will feed the market instead.
for me until we discover next huge innovation in battery tech this is mistake. I would say we need 3x more charge with the same weight and volume. to starting to say that have some sense. presented plane have 65min flight time with reserve. for me its not enough even for local/single airport operation. assume you flying 40min want to go back and another plane crash on your airport. can you reach another airport? another problem as battery ageing profile of voltage-charge changes. for that you should sometimes make full cycle 100%charge to 0% (to cut off) to learn BMS current profile. and full cycles aren't healthy for batteries.
In the gliding world there are 'FES' means of propulsion sailplanes (Front Engine Sustainer) (MOP) These batteries have liquid vials on them so in the event of mishandling, they have to be manually lifted out of a compartment in the space behind the pilot. If they are dropped/laid down heavily/ heavy landing, the vial will break and the whole battery pack is deemed unserviceable.
For at least a few years it seems only flight schools will be consistent users at scale of pure electric aviation BUT hybrids offer fuel saving options!
…great idea. Jettison the single most expensive and heaviest item on the airplane. Sounds perfectly cost effective and safe for everyone on the surface. Oh, ha ha ha….nice one centurion.
On an electric plane you have constant behaviour on a full charge or not, yes there are heavy batteries, but it simplify operations and simplify familiarisation, weight distribution is a non issue
Unfortunately, I believe the highest density batteries have some fire risk so I hope that can be ameliorated-Boeing 787 lithium difficulties a reminder…
I would imagine a more likely solution will be the use range extenders to charge the batteries whilst in flight, but they would probably be too small to make much difference to the weight balance of the plane between take off and landing
If you glide or fly only briefly under power and can dead stick land anywhere, or if you keep your aircraft at home, live in a high or cold or very hot environment, or if noise abatement demands it, great. That sounds like a PPG in the suburbs of a mountainous region.
I think the answer is hybrid. personally I think having a small base load of batteries integrated into the structure of the plane in arias not suitable for fuel as well as avoiding passenger or other storage arias hopefully managing to fit enough to take off preferably also giving some amount of flight time as well. With some kind of base plane now hopefully coming in real light I would like to see some kind of modular system where for example 1-2-3-or4 small generators could be plugged in or battery packs could be added or what ever combination would be best for the flight. its the same problem I have with the way cars are being made IMO a hybrid car should be plug in, have around a 100k range and have 1 or 2 small extremely efficient generators I could leave at home if i wanted
Electric power is quite impractical in the smallest scale two seat aircraft compared with internal combustion equivalents however electric power is not scaleable so trying to fly larger aircraft with any kind of practical performance is impossible. Personally as a pilot I don’t want to be sitting on lots of inflatable batteries either!!
One of the big misunderstandings is the association of electro-mechanical energy conversion (using electric motors) with accumulators. But accumulators will _ n e v e r _ compete with chemical energy or even nuclear power. My guess hence is, that the corresponding industry "hopes" to convince enough people of this accumulator-based mobility (air, ground, water) to simply make the billions like before with crude oil based machines (pure economical reasons, or simpler: Greed)... and makes even heavy use of mass media and even political 'opinion boosters'... of some "green parties". And a real sad thing is, that most citizens have almost (or completely) none idea of any technology, so that all the current propaganda finds a lot of "believers" (which almost always become "lovers") and "doubters" (who also become very quickly "haters"). I'm even pretty sure, that "hating" as well as "loving" is the desired 'mode' of dealing with these topics, as both imply a total lack of reason, logic and technical understanding, making it very simple, to 'sell' everything with pure bull$hit and cheap excuses instead of the necessity to offer clear and comprehensible data (which btw. also helps to justify price increasing without real urge - a dream of industry and politics, of course). Electrical propulsion will become a real alternative to combustion engines as soon as there are tiny nuclear reactors available - not _ o n e _ s i n g l e _ d a y _ s o o n e r _. And this will be a reactor, which works basically as a fusion reactor (although the current methods to fuse atomic cores doesn't allow yet to use such machines on a small scale, so this will need at least some decadeas). All the morons babbling of their "marvellous" e-car/-bike/-whatsoever are part of the still growing community of physics deniers (isn't it funny? They speak of "climate deniers, ... whatsoever deniers" to distract from their _ o w n _ incapability ot understand physics, chemistry and biology thoroughly... 🤣), which are the future target group of an industry, which for the first time ever won't need to present any type of technological details of their products in order to make them attractive to customers, but can rely on the simple fact, that almost no one would at least understand their statements... they can sell based ond pure fairy tales... isn't that _ r e a l l y _ marvelous? As mentioned: As long as nuclear fusion isn't available as power source, _ n o _ elecrical propulsion will be an alternative. And... it is a sign of human stupidity to not understand, how simple combustion engines running fuel made from the "hated" CO2 and may be some water could very easily stop CO2-growth and... if the GREEDY industrial "golbal players" forget their greed at least for a moment, this technology could quickly become daily use around the whole planet. But is this really targeted...? Do you see any effort taken in this direction? _ N o t h i n g _ a t _ a l l _ - except complains over complains and the "demand" for accumulator technology selling; isn't it a transparent and threadbare tactic.....?
Fine essay. Just one minor criticism. "different" -- ;ate Middle English: via Old French from Latin different- ‘carrying away, differing’, from the verb differre Just as things "separate from", "diverge from" "split from", "secede from", "distinguished from" "cut from" "removed from" "flee from" and are "differentiated from" and "distinct from" and "away from", it is "similar TO" and "different FROM". The use of "different to" is language degeneration by the ignorant become colloquial habit. Prepositions matter and, interestingly, problems with prepositions are pretty good indicators of the real mother tongue of the speaker. Certain languages don't have prepositions and instead use a system of word endings that English left behind centuries ago. During that period in the history of English word order was irrelevant because of the word endings. In fact, at that time English barely used articles. boy walk store gives you a sense of what might be intended by word order, but in old English the order could be walk store boy and it wouldn't matter because the word endings would do all the work. Some current languages retain traces of these archaic-isms along with object having gender revealing vestigial animist and animatist history of the peoples.
You are not talking nonsense but there are interesting developments. A new company in the Netherlands is developing an aircraft for 90 passengers with a range of 1000 km. CATL, the world's largest battery producer so an interested party, says that within five years a range of 2000 or 3000 km will be possible. As China imports most of the oil it consumes it is interested in replacing fuel burning aircraft ( 737MAX! ) with electric aircraft. It will therefore equip its airports with adequate infrastructure. There is a car that can absorb 800 kw, to charge from 10% to 80% in ten minutes, which I assume few chargers can deliver. Large aircraft will have to absorb many megawatts so these are serious investments and it will take time before these aircraft can be used on international routes. But the infrastructure will be developed and also for smaller aircraft and airfields, and will be available for export. Pipistrel Velis is derived from an aircraft with Rotax engine and is not fully designed for use of an electric motor. If you design for electric power you would naturally put the batteries in the wing. This has major advantages for the structural weight of the aircraft. Also you design the undercarriage for landing at full take off weight. You might well design for motors on the wing to help blow the flaps for better take off performance as the maintenance costs of the motors is low.
Sounds interesting. I do tend to take news about "groundbreaking new batteries" with a grain of salt. I'm not saying it isn't true, there are some promising developments for sure. But range promises without knowing the weight and size of the batteries don't mean much. What I mean by that is, can it carry 90 passengers for 1000km? Or is it a 90 seat aircraft, but for a 1,000km flight it can only carry a fraction of that number. Marketing material is deceptive, especially pre-prototype when looking for investors, and post-prototype where it is generally accepted that all performance numbers (range, endurance etc.) are at MAUW, when it comes to electric aircraft, I have now a few times observed that manufacturers/marketers neglect to honour that unwritten "rule" and will give numbers that's only achievable at lower operating weight.
Developing a 90 pax/1000 km is easily said but essentially magical thinking at this point. 4 years on, the Velis remains the one and only electric airplane that has passed any kind of certification program. CATL have a vested interest in bigging up the prospects for this sector. To say that up to 3000 km “is possible” is very much like saying that travel up to the speed of light is possible. The hard part is engineering a machine that actually approaches these theoretical limits. After 150 years of rigorous development, the production gasoline engine is languishing around the 30% efficiency mark when the theoretical limit with the combustion temperatures routinely achieved in these engines is near 90%. Battery development actually predates the internal combustion engine so I do not see much justification for believing the many engineering challenges between current state of the art and ‘theoretically possible’ are suddenly about to be brushed aside. Now turning to your comments on the Velis: quote “Velis is derived from an aircraft with Rotax engine and not fully designed for use of an electric motor. If you design for electric power you would naturally put the batteries in the wing. This has major advantage for the structural weight” Yes it is derived from the Rotax equipped Virus, which seriously outperforms it, and costs less. But batteries in wings? We are looking at an energy source that is around 30 times heavier than avgas per unit propulsive energy required. You cannot put that battery in the wing and save structural weight because 1) it is an order of magnitude more heavy than fuel to begin with 2) the wing structure would have to be strengthened immensely to cope with the landing, so more weight still. Quote “Also, you design the undercarriage for landing at full take off weight” The undercarriage of the Virus is already designed for landing at maximum take off mass. That is normal for light aircraft.
The problem with electric is the battery, nothing else. Lithium sucks and will never get the job done. Hydrocarbons will always win against Lithium. Change the battery to something *much* better, electric wins. Stick with low energy density batteries, and it's all just a dream.
And another thing a battery, motor controler and motor is heavier than an engine,ecu and fuel tank, pound for pound and mile for mile a battery aircraft makes no sense at all
pipistreal uses old ass lithium batteries, This would fly at least 2/30 hours with NIO's semi solid state batteries. 10:50 I believe going from 180wh/kg to 500wh/kg is a huge leap, and then using silicon to jump to 700wh/kg is also a huge leap. 14:30 I strongly disagree, airplanes can be charged by any EV charging station if they use the same protocol, and in China if you run out of power, you can call the company up to bring you some power, problem solved. OMG the battery packs can only handle 500 hours? Why the f are they using not even EV tech but smartphone grade batteries?
@@MsKatjie I like the fact that laptop's have longer lifespan than electric planes that are based on the old gen, while Tesla, NIO, BYD are all ahead by a century.
At this stage i dont think this might work. Definitely not for GA. Not a fan of hydrogen power cells either. Storing hydrogen might be doable only for larger places. And even than it is still a hassle to store. One mistake and it goes boom. If i was able to get carried away in what ifs: I do have to wonder how would it work out if one was to take advantage of both. In form of a hybrid propulsion. Small diesel or even turbine charging the capacitor array. Not too large just able to hold charge for 30min of cruise power. Looking at this from safety perspective, engine problem accidents could become mere annoyance. No wear on engines due to spikes in power draw. Thus longer life for engines. Turbines running at their optimum efficiency always. And i heard some talks about some interesting small engines designed for power generation alone. Or Those non-rechargeable Aluminum-air batteries do have pretty impressive capacity. Given some standardized ubiquitous easily swapable battery type. It does look very promising. Of course this would have to be spearheaded by actual engineers not politicians who are in it only to promote their usually nefarious agenda - thus why we cannot have nice things.
I like the idea of hydrogen, be it ICE or fuel cell, but as you said the problem is storage; in liquid form it needs to be cooled to -253°C, and then you have the evaporation problem. In gas form the tanks would need to be huge to allow acceptable endurance/range, which basically means it's not possible for light aircraft. Hybrids seem really promising for larger aircraft, and while not as heavy as full electric, are heavier than ICE. But at least it doesn't have the endurance problem of full electric. Hybrids are fairly complex though, and I see almost no light airplane engine manufacturers biting here. The best solution in my opinion is biofuel. Use the engine technology that exists, with approx 80% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, making it cleaner than full electric. Biofuel is already being made, but production needs to ramp-up though, but EV cars is a political distraction and preventing more funds and focus on biofuel.
@@LetsGoAviate Hydrogen even supposed to leak slowly. Given one of the smallest of radii. 🙂 Interesting. Here in europe biofuels have poor reputation. Essentially being considered to be in that subsidized category. Where efforts to grow plants for them costing almost as much as you get out of them. And agricultural folk point out the toll on soil which gets striped of all nutrients and all moisture after couple of years growing things like rapeseed. But that is something which i cannot confirm nor deny since i lack any agricultural expertise. Do you have any specific crop in mind for the biofuels ?
@@DirkLarien Interesting about biofuel in europe. Anything to do with the very pro-electric stance, and the threat biofuel poses? Just a wild guess, not based on much. I know nothing about agriculture, but it seems sugarcane biofuel production in Brazil have been doing very well for many years already.
@@LetsGoAviate That might very well be the case. Each group pushing what they have stakes in and bashing the competition. Guess in order to make any kind of informed opinion one has to become fairly versed in the field. Oh well. Sugar cane hmm, that does makes sense for fermentation.
No Lead emissions that lowers IQ of kids living near the airport. Batteries in wings and/or under seats. 2X Higher energy density batteries are already available. Do an update every Year and you will see the technology is fast improving massively. Bigger wings will be required and standard for electric powered aircraft. Wing structure is very lightweight. This will give better range at lower speed and great endurance with electric motors being very efficient at low power compared to gas engines. Battery and motor TBO will be 10000 hrs when the technology is fully evolved.
Ok then lets go through all this. “No lead emissions” True enough. Avgas has a lot of ‘lead’. OTOH Jet A has none and is the vast majority of aviation fuel consumed. And lead free avgas has now been certified in the US of A. “Batteries in wings and/or under seats” That isn’t happening. Nobody is putting the propulsion batteries into wings because they are far too heavy. Equally, having the large mass concentrated in the fuselage brings structural constraints of its own. The ICE twin sister of the Velis has a Vne literally 50% higher, yet they share the exact same weight. Nor can those batteries go under seats. They represent a fire hazard that constrains where they can be. There is a lot more that can be said about that. “2X higher energy density batteries are already available” No they are not. No other battery has yet been certified as a propulsion battery for aviation. You cannot just put a better cell into the pack because nothing can go into the airplane without being certified. Nor does having 2X higher energy density at cell level translate into 2X higher energy density at pack level. Especially not for aviation where the pack requires rigorous fault tolerance, resistance to thermal runaway, and crashworthiness in order to be certified. “Do an update every year…” In other words, go through the costly recertification process every year. See above. Jesus wept. This isn’t like upgrading your smart phone. “…and you will see the technology is fast improving massively” The Velis Electro received its type certificate more than 4 years ago. There has been no upgrade in performance. “Bigger wings will be required and standard for electric aircraft” Why exactly? “Wing structure is very lightweight” Not if you think you are going to put propulsion batteries in there and want to land without breaking the wings off. “This will give better range at lower speed” Bigger wings equal more wetted area which is the main source of drag in the cruise where profile drag dominates. Optimising for range requires high aspect ratio which means increasing the ratio of span over chord. There are no free lunches. If you just increase wing area, you get more drag, lower wing loading, bumpy ride. And you don’t need that when you have a hefty mass fraction concentrated in the fuselage. OTOH if you just increase aspect ratio you need a stronger heftier wing structure. “with electric motors being very efficient at low power compared to gas engines” True. But after factoring for efficiency you are still looking at more than an order of magnitude disadvantage in net specific range. “battery and motor TBO will be 10000 hrs when the technology is fully evolved” That is magical thinking. Reality is electric motors predate ICE engines and have seen abundant service upon which to base the TBO. There is no way you are increasing a 2000 hr TBO by a factor of 5. Battery TBO is 500 hrs so will rise significantly with more service data. But 10k hrs is a pipe dream and any time you try and certify a new cell you are going to attract a conservative TBO until it has proven itself in service. The FAA already had their fingers burned (not a pun) with the ‘Boeing Dreamburner’. None of this is going to happen quickly or cheaply.
I wondered if you are a pilot or not. Took a few years, but finally the public learned electrics are not ready for prime time , that is ground vehicles, Aviation are even more demanding , and your claim of no fire risks and low maintenance are not supported by real world experiences in ground vehicles. Pipetrial is correct that electric planes are for use with piston airplanes, which happens to be the same with ground vehicles as well. The whole world are waiting for a tech break through in energy storage , for many applications
use more aromatics. eggs have to be broken. you obviously don't know much about battery making. Point they are not without many envo concerns. It seems a political, rather than feasible tech. i freely admit my bias against. cheers
Here is a question to pose to Chat GPT or similar: "can you compare & quantify the emissions between the life cycle of an internal combustion engine car and similarly powered battery electric car? Including manufacturing emissions. Assume that power provided to the electric car is from renewable resources." Then ask for a similar comparison for light aircraft. Battery electric anything (except golf carts) is in it's relative infancy and will supplant ICE in smaller vehicles as battery tech evolves.
there are so many problems in the world right now though ... and i do work on sustainable solutions, but it is still coming back to the no talk topics.
i talked to a glider company about H202 sustainer trhusters ... i don't know the most efficient process to produce H2O2, but the reaction is clean. then there are the silver catylist screens ... and being able to automate stall protection, with such a sustainer, pilots will no doubt want to recycle their sceens for new ones when questionable.
an electric10 warthog would have no heat signature and the batteries would work as extra armour - some planes have drop tanks, an electric stratolanch plane with a lifting body between the fuselages would cross the pacific or any continent
@@replica1052 I never said they did - you claimed the electric aircraft "would have no heat signature" and that isn't true at all. Modern electronics can easily detect heat that is only a few degrees above the surroundings. The motors will get a lot hotter than you might imagine and will easily be detected by temperature difference. These aircraft "might" have some advantages but this isn't one of them.
Electric airplanes are a joke. New combustion tech will be 60% to 75% efficient and RE E-fuels will be $1/gal wholesale, $2/gal retail. No way can EVs compete. Try 1 gal/hr at 120 mph. 100 gallon is 12,000 miles. Distributed power. 6 engine systems...never come out of air. Land and take off at 25 mph with power on lift and boundary layer control that can reduce drag b 50%. No stall and spin nonsense. EVs are a waste of time and money. All will go bankrupt. HINT.
Hi I am no pilot but battery aircraft you must be joking who was the numty that granted a n air worthiness ticket for that plane have they not seen enough cars go up in flames while charging and also burst into flames being driven and after relatively light accident damage. I won't have a battery ev as I don't want my house burnt down and I wouldn't get into a battery aircraft because I don't want to burn to death
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I would disagree on the post crash fire risk. Lightweight battery technology, lithium batteries, represent major fire risk.
I don't think so. Even in cars, it does not represent a "major" fire risk.
Combustible fuels used to present a fire risk, but we learned to deal with them. The same will happen with batteries. Battery packs have to pass certification, just like any other system. So, in the end, it's no more dangerous than Jet A, Avgas, or biofuels.
@@leoarc1061Nonsense. The nature of lithium fires mean that they present an exponentially higher risk in ALL applications. Aviation is no exception.
We are already seeing building owners being denied insurance cover for the storage and or charging of electric road vehicles, including cars, vans, busses, scooters and bicycles.
Insurance companies’ decisions are governed by risk, and the level of potential losses for their underwriters.
When something as humble as an electric scooter or bicycle can totally prevent you from obtaining insurance cover, there are serious and fundamental issues with the very nature of those products.
Without totally disingenuous WEF lobbying, and taxpayer funded government incentives, no one would be even considering electric aircraft.
@@leoarc1061Nonsense. The nature of lithium fires mean that they present an exponentially higher risk in ALL applications. Aviation is no exception.
We are already seeing building owners being denied insurance cover for the storage and or charging of electric road vehicles, including cars, vans, busses, scooters and bicycles.
Insurance companies’ decisions are governed by risk, and the level of potential losses for their underwriters.
When something as humble as an electric scooter or bicycle can totally prevent you from obtaining insurance cover, there are serious and fundamental issues with the very nature of those products.
Without totally disingenuous WEF lobbying, and taxpayer funded government incentives, no one would be even considering electric aircraft.
@@leoarc1061 @G58 says the nature of lithium is very different. Fuels it is a matter of protecting them from an ignition source and interestingly enough liquid fuels will conform to the shape of their container so their containers can be designed to deform and to self seal. Batteries on the other hand have their own ignition source and cannot tolerate much deformation before shorts can occur. That is the major risk in a crash and for this reason EVs that get into relatively minor accidents by ICE vehicle standards often get totaled as it is difficult to ascertain battery integrity even though they may have not caught fire at the time of accident. Lithium is so reactive that such fires burn with extremely high heat making it practically impossible to isolate an individual cell enough to limit spread.
So does Aviation gas.
Boiled down: the issue with electric aircraft is not the motor, it’s the low energy density of battery technology. The foreseeable markets are trainers and air taxis. No airliners.
G'day,
To everybody who
Whinges about the
Alleged
"Low Energy Density" of
Lithium Batteries...;
One might say,
"Pull your silly Little Head
In...; and
Instead of trying to compare the
Energy density
Of a Lithium Battery to that of a Petrol Tank...;
Try comparing
Apples with Apples
Instead of
Apples with Bottles of
Brandy.
Before opening one's
Yap to complain about
Lithium being
Wimpy in the Energy density
"Stakes" (compared to
Multi-Chain Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons...) ;
Compare today's Lithium Batteries with NiMh, NiFe, NiCad, or
Pb/H2-SO4...
And, be it noted that there is
Zero "advantage" in using Lithium UNLESS the Battery is to be Mobile...; Golf-Carts still use Lead/Acid open Water-boxes - and Stand-alone Houselighting setups use sealed Lead/Acid Gel-Cells...
Lithium Batteries have an
INSANELY
HIGH
Energy Density,
Actually,
In real life...
Ask
ANY
FIREFIGHTER...
Your
Problem is that you be were
Bred, born, raised-up and
Trained to
Believe that you have a
"Right" to access
Mind-buggaringly
Stupid amounts of
Potential & Kinetic
Energy-Release, at the
Push of a
Button -
And to regard that as being
"Perfectly Normal"...
Regardless of the
Environmental
Cost & destruction incurred so that your
Access to Energy-Release has become
Habitually
Reflexive &
Unthinking.
I ride a 3,500 Watt 60-Volt road-registered Motocross Bike to town for
"Small Groceries" 35 Km return trips, and a
Stand-Alone Solar Setup is in the
Pipeline, to replace the Petrol Generator, currently, doing duty (!).
If only Oz' CASA had not
Repealed 95.10,
I would rebuild, and
Electrify
My old, crashed
VJ-24w
(Ultralight Motorglider) using a
Motor, Battery & Speed-Controller from the
Talaria Sting (L1-e) (Motorbike).
If you want to be able to
Fly
SOMETHING,
At least a little bit,
When the petrol becomes too expensive to burn,
Or goes out of
Fashion
Or becomes unobtainable ;
Then
An Electric
ANYTHING
Will shit from a very great height,
All over your
Garden Ornament, sitting
Where a Fossil-burning Machine
Used to be...
Don't worry about
"Oh, ah, ewwie,
Look at what the
Shiny new
E-thingie
Simply
Cannot do-ie...
Boo-hoo & Fooey !"
Or, words to that effect.
Such is life,
Have a good one.
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Elektrik motor =Good, electric battery = Bad🔋 Solution replace battery whit hydrogen 🎉❤🎉
@@valentinuiliqnow6198
G'day,
Hydrogen is the
Smallest
Atom in the
Periodic Table of Elements.
To store the stuff is
Prohibitively
Thermally
Ineffective as a
Way to store
Energy.
The Energy cost of
Cryogenically refrigerating Hydrogen and watching it
Boil-off...
While it
MIGRATES through the
Teflon Linings in any
Steel Storage Tanks -
Infiltrating the Steel, and
Turning the Structural Steel into
BRITTLE Crystalline Hydrogen Isotopes thereof.
After that,
The Tanks fail under
Pressure.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells are
ONLY
60% EFFICIENT
At turning (Distilled) Water & Electricity into
H2 + O2 in separated streams ; and then after that they're
ONLY
60% Efficient at turning the
Stored Glasses back into
Current + Water....
So, 60% of 60% makes
Hydrogen
36% Efficient at taking Electricity, storing it as separated Explosive Gasses and recombining them to furnish Current at some later time.
All the while the Stored Hydrogen is
Slowly migrating through the walls of the Structure and eating
Energy to refrigerate it.
The Lithium Battery in my
Talaria Sting (L1-e) is
95% efficient at accepting & storing & returning Electric current
My old Lead acid Lighting Batteries are 90% Efficient at storing Current.
Hydrogen is a fit Fuel
Only for
Government funded
Boodgoggles like
Skyrockets trying to
Run away from
The
Reality
Of
Life On Earth.
Wake up to yourself...(?) !
Such is life,
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
Gotta wait till China will make electric planes, their batteries are amazing.
Thank you for refraining from gaslighting us about electric vehicles being "zero emission."
Excellent and thought provoking. Our electric motor technology is 21st century. The deal breaker is a portable source of electricity that weighs less than 6.5 lbs/gal.
There is no overhaul of the Velis battery. It is a euphemism. The battery TBO is actually ‘new battery from Pipistrel’ at over €20k a pop. Also there is a main bearing change required at….each 200 hrs! Given the battery replacement costs more than an overhauled eg Lyco 0-235, and has to be done 3 times as often, plus the frequent main bearing change, there is no way maintenance ends up cheaper than ICE. After amortisation of the extra cost of maintenance across the TBO, the hourly operating cost is more than a C-152 at eg current UK electricity vs avgas rates. Nonetheless this is an area that will most likely improve somewhat when more operational data becomes available from the nascent electric fleet to justify increasing the conservative TBOs - assuming electricity rates do not significantly increase (big if).
On endurance of the Velis: the ‘50 minutes plus reserve’ is a special case allowed in Europe whereby when remaining within sight of the airport the final reserve can be 10 minutes (note, this applies to pistons as well, it is not a dispensation for electric). This does not apply in the USA. In reality, with the 30 minute reserve, you end up with about 20 minutes endurance with 2 POB, a little more with a single pilot. So the point to point performance becomes the nearest airport you can reach in 20 minutes at cruise power.
The general public, even a lot of pilots, tend to have a hopelessly optimistic belief in the near to medium term capabilities of all-electric aircraft. This is most likely informed by the arrival of the practical EV and the bad assumption that the same results can be transferred to airplanes.
Don't you get 30 minutes endurance with 30 minutes reserve?
What you said at the end is what I wanted to convey. Just because it works for cars doesn't automatically make it suitable for planes.
If a new battery is €20k, it's almost the cost of a brand new Rotax 912.
@@grekiki Well, you might approach 30 minutes plus 30 minute reserve with a single pilot but with 2 POB you have more induced drag. Embry Riddle University in Florida have a Velis and my 20 minutes came from what they reported, so I think we can consider that to be accurate and unbiased information.
@@LetsGoAviatedoes it work for cars? I'm far from convinced of that either. You're still driving around with literally a ton of battery, then there's the matter of infrastructure and power generation. Here in the UK there are millions of homes without off road parking, and we have to import electricity at peak times as it is, let alone coping with the prospect of 40,000,000 light vehicles, plus commercials.
Aircraft have a larger take-off weight than their landing weight, this is to stop shock damage to landing gear when landing. This is achieved by burning up fuel in flight. An electric aircraft would be the same weight when it landed and when it took off. You forget the totally destructive explosive and combustion capability if lithium batteries... often demonstrated at ground level by BEV....
Thank you Jaco...thought provoking indeed. I personally do not see electrical powered aircraft to the scale of Part 121 or 135 operations and limited Part 91 operations, I believe to limit emissions, which was the objective of green power, will fall into the Hydrogen combustion category. Toyota have basically shelved electrical power for hydrogen combustion power
I think battery "overhauls" would simply be an audit of cell health and the replacement of any dead cells, which, if the pack is designed properly (not a small design challenge) could take it from a remanufacturing process to simply an automated process.
Great video. The big problem is not with the electric motors but rather, as you said, the battery technology.
Many of the small electrics, like the Electro, are being pushed for use as trainers. In my humble opinion, they seem to be marginally suitable for that role for several reasons. First, the 50 minute endurance is not a particularly long training session. I looked back at my log book and only 20% of my training related flights would have fit in 50 minutes, fewer if you factor in the takeoff. You speculated that the reserve was 30 minutes and I would agree with that as the specs stated "VFR reserve" which is enough time to get to your destination +30 minutes. The specs also stated that the cruising speed was 90 KCAS (90 knots calibrated airspeed). With 50 minutes endurance that yields a distance of only 75 nautical miles less power used in takeoff and climb to cruising altitude. A Light Sport license requires a 75 nautical mile cross country flight with landings at two points. So the second point is that an Electro would be hard pushed to make that required cross country flight on a single charge. The final point is that, as you mentioned, operation of an electric motor is much easier and you don't have to worry about mixture, carb heat, warm up, throttle response or switching fuel tanks. While that is all true, it also means that a student trained solely on electric would then not be trained to manage an ICE engine in an aircraft. That is something that said student would almost certainly encounter and, at least initially, their trained habits and instincts would be out of sync with the power source of the aircraft they were operating which could result in a problem.
While I am not against electric cars or aircraft, the battery technology has a long way to go before it can match the capabilities of an internal combustion engine.
I agree with the points you raise here. I just want to point out that in this ‘50 minute plus reserves’, it is not the expected 30 minutes but an obscure EASA rule that reserve can be just 10 minutes (!) for flights remaining within sight of the airport. Embry Riddle University have a Velis and they reliably report an endurance of about 20 minutes with 2 POB plus requisite FAA 30 minute reserve. So point to point performance, or anything BVR of the field with 2 POB is maximum 20 minutes, a little more for the single pilot.
That they are referring to an EASA rule makes perfect sense. Thanks for making that point.
The info you quoted on Velis really highlights the current cross country limitations of the battery technology Even though there are seven small airports near my home airport, only two would be within comfortable range and that would not make the aircraft attractive to a potential buyer.
Man, just imagine an Airbus A380 landing with full MTOW, that is almost 600 tons of weight. What a spectacle.
Here in the UK at least many airfield are installing Aerovolt DC chargers, but even if a site doesn’t have power many cars now come with V2L (Vechicle2Load) functionality, which could be used as an emergency charger if necessary at the slower AC charging rates. There are other options like Kempower mobile chargers if a site doesn’t want to go to fully installed chargers but wants to provide DC charging options
Thinking back to my CFI days...and I'm imagining trying to get up and out to the practice area, trying to cram all the maneuvers in, and back to the field, on a hard 50min endurance limit. Six lessons a day, 6 days a week. It almost brings me to tears.
Fascinating.
Hybrid?
Much smaller battery?
Can you do a video on hybrid (or even distributed electric)?
A 22 Kwh battery pack? An average electricity use of a household per day would be something like 3 Kwh. Soooo..... charging this tiny plane in one hour would cost as much electricity as 7 houses running their normale household for a whole day! If an airport starts using a few of these planes and tries to charge them simultaneously, the grid cannot cope. Now imagine charging a BIG airplane for a LONG trip. No matter how advanced the batteries, charging such a plane would cost as much energy as feeding an entire city.
... I believe that you can plug a pipistrel in to 220 v everywhere, just find an extension cord
Great insightful video!
You mentioned many things I wouldn't considered. The "getthere-itis" is indeed a thing I wouldn't consider at first, and it's definitely an important aspect.
That thing about incentives holds no water, incentives in purchase of electric airplane doesn't affect final cost for the end user, it increases margin for the company for the specific service because it lowers live costs, certainly the specific service now it is niches because the reason you said, check the Canadian airplane company that switched to electric engines.
Incentives are to usually to push government agendas. It's basically paying people to do make purchasing decisions they wouldn't otherwise.
Is it Harbor air? I did make a quick reference to them in the video. Besides the promises of converting their fleet, they only did one initially, then in 2023 converted a second. I'm of opinion they are operated the first one at a sizeable financial loss as it can carry fewer passengers per flight than the standard plane due to the heavy weight of the batteries.
The second one was converted with lighter battery types but I don't know if they ever got it certified, probably.
The only reason they can even make it work is because of their flights are very short, 30 minutes or less. The perfect company to go full electric in my opinion, assuming with lighter battery technology it will make a net profit per flight.
For the TBO figure of 500, I suspect that is just caution as it is still a relatively new technologies. Vehicles has the same concern initially limiting total mileage and charging cycles to say 80,000 miles and 500 charging cycles. The latest cars are coming with batteries rated for 1 million miles and 1000+ charging cycles. The longevity of the batteries has been a problem for the industry that was planning to recycle the batteries into home battery storage systems - they just can’t get enough of them because they are living on longer than expected. When EVs have battery problems it tends not to be the chemistry but the electronic controller circuit boards in a cell getting damaged from water ingress and broken cell housing seals from perished rubber, etc.
Hallo to the US,
you are absolutely right. Even worse: at the reasently AERO 2024 exhibition there is raising some kind of hype towards electric driven flying objects of every kind. Nobody who pushes that industry calculates the amount of energy compared to the weights involved.
Not only in GA-planes, but even in Paramotoring it does not make any scence when trying to get a flight time of more than 30 minutes.
But there might be a usefull concept: Paramotoring in areas which tend to be noise sensitive combined with flying in upwinds and thermals just as a recreational sport. Staying up in the air without the engine, simply using it for the start. But overall, the available systems are much to expensive and come with all the flaws.
So the only thing for electric enthusiasts is to wait until batteries are improving to a state that its weight to power figures are comparable to other propulsion solutions.
Greetings, Marc
Absolutely, and I see a lot of new motorglider designs that are electric, which I think makes a bit of sense, since the motor is really only there to get you to thermals. It will need less batteries which will be lighter and the battery weight can be used as ballast.
I think that we are about 3 decades away from most newly acquired private planes being electric.
As for commercial jets, we will have to wait a little longer for electric power units to be able to surpass the energy density of combustibles.
This, of course, takes the assumption that batteries will continue to evolve at the current rate. If we start to get into diminishing returns, the story will be rather different. In such case, biofuels will feed the market instead.
for me until we discover next huge innovation in battery tech this is mistake. I would say we need 3x more charge with the same weight and volume. to starting to say that have some sense.
presented plane have 65min flight time with reserve. for me its not enough even for local/single airport operation. assume you flying 40min want to go back and another plane crash on your airport. can you reach another airport?
another problem as battery ageing profile of voltage-charge changes. for that you should sometimes make full cycle 100%charge to 0% (to cut off) to learn BMS current profile. and full cycles aren't healthy for batteries.
In the gliding world there are 'FES' means of propulsion sailplanes (Front Engine Sustainer) (MOP) These batteries have liquid vials on them so in the event of mishandling, they have to be manually lifted out of a compartment in the space behind the pilot. If they are dropped/laid down heavily/ heavy landing, the vial will break and the whole battery pack is deemed unserviceable.
I wonder if batteries could be jettisoned when mostly depleted or even in the case of malfunctioning/fire risk-military applications first presumably…
For at least a few years it seems only flight schools will be consistent users at scale of pure electric aviation BUT hybrids offer fuel saving options!
…great idea. Jettison the single most expensive and heaviest item on the airplane. Sounds perfectly cost effective and safe for everyone on the surface. Oh, ha ha ha….nice one centurion.
Another advantages are zero CG shift and thrust vectoring.
On an electric plane you have constant behaviour on a full charge or not, yes there are heavy batteries, but it simplify operations and simplify familiarisation, weight distribution is a non issue
Wow yeah the battery switching an extra level of design difficulty wow Nio in particular should be consulted to extend their success to aviation!?🔋🛫
Unfortunately, I believe the highest density batteries have some fire risk so I hope that can be ameliorated-Boeing 787 lithium difficulties a reminder…
I would imagine a more likely solution will be the use range extenders to charge the batteries whilst in flight, but they would probably be too small to make much difference to the weight balance of the plane between take off and landing
@@stephenwensley9328 apparently lots of r&d going into this arena of hybrid electric aircraft yeah should save fuel soon - we shall see…
If you glide or fly only briefly under power and can dead stick land anywhere, or if you keep your aircraft at home, live in a high or cold or very hot environment, or if noise abatement demands it, great. That sounds like a PPG in the suburbs of a mountainous region.
Or autogyros
I think the answer is hybrid. personally I think having a small base load of batteries integrated into the structure of the plane in arias not suitable for fuel as well as avoiding passenger or other storage arias hopefully managing to fit enough to take off preferably also giving some amount of flight time as well. With some kind of base plane now hopefully coming in real light I would like to see some kind of modular system where for example 1-2-3-or4 small generators could be plugged in or battery packs could be added or what ever combination would be best for the flight. its the same problem I have with the way cars are being made IMO a hybrid car should be plug in, have around a 100k range and have 1 or 2 small extremely efficient generators I could leave at home if i wanted
Why bother? Carry more fuel. Anyone who thinks ICE have no room for improvement don't know them!
Electric power is quite impractical in the smallest scale two seat aircraft compared with internal combustion equivalents however electric power is not scaleable so trying to fly larger aircraft with any kind of practical performance is impossible. Personally as a pilot I don’t want to be sitting on lots of inflatable batteries either!!
One of the big misunderstandings is the association of electro-mechanical energy conversion (using electric motors) with accumulators. But accumulators will _ n e v e r _ compete with chemical energy or even nuclear power. My guess hence is, that the corresponding industry "hopes" to convince enough people of this accumulator-based mobility (air, ground, water) to simply make the billions like before with crude oil based machines (pure economical reasons, or simpler: Greed)... and makes even heavy use of mass media and even political 'opinion boosters'... of some "green parties".
And a real sad thing is, that most citizens have almost (or completely) none idea of any technology, so that all the current propaganda finds a lot of "believers" (which almost always become "lovers") and "doubters" (who also become very quickly "haters"). I'm even pretty sure, that "hating" as well as "loving" is the desired 'mode' of dealing with these topics, as both imply a total lack of reason, logic and technical understanding, making it very simple, to 'sell' everything with pure bull$hit and cheap excuses instead of the necessity to offer clear and comprehensible data (which btw. also helps to justify price increasing without real urge - a dream of industry and politics, of course).
Electrical propulsion will become a real alternative to combustion engines as soon as there are tiny nuclear reactors available - not _ o n e _ s i n g l e _ d a y _ s o o n e r _. And this will be a reactor, which works basically as a fusion reactor (although the current methods to fuse atomic cores doesn't allow yet to use such machines on a small scale, so this will need at least some decadeas).
All the morons babbling of their "marvellous" e-car/-bike/-whatsoever are part of the still growing community of physics deniers (isn't it funny? They speak of "climate deniers, ... whatsoever deniers" to distract from their _ o w n _ incapability ot understand physics, chemistry and biology thoroughly... 🤣), which are the future target group of an industry, which for the first time ever won't need to present any type of technological details of their products in order to make them attractive to customers, but can rely on the simple fact, that almost no one would at least understand their statements... they can sell based ond pure fairy tales... isn't that _ r e a l l y _ marvelous?
As mentioned: As long as nuclear fusion isn't available as power source, _ n o _ elecrical propulsion will be an alternative.
And... it is a sign of human stupidity to not understand, how simple combustion engines running fuel made from the "hated" CO2 and may be some water could very easily stop CO2-growth and... if the GREEDY industrial "golbal players" forget their greed at least for a moment, this technology could quickly become daily use around the whole planet. But is this really targeted...? Do you see any effort taken in this direction? _ N o t h i n g _ a t _ a l l _ - except complains over complains and the "demand" for accumulator technology selling; isn't it a transparent and threadbare tactic.....?
good work
good info thanks
Fine essay. Just one minor criticism.
"different" -- ;ate Middle English: via Old French from Latin different- ‘carrying away, differing’, from the verb differre
Just as things "separate from", "diverge from" "split from", "secede from", "distinguished from" "cut from" "removed from" "flee from" and are "differentiated from" and "distinct from" and "away from", it is "similar TO" and "different FROM". The use of "different to" is language degeneration by the ignorant become colloquial habit. Prepositions matter and, interestingly, problems with prepositions are pretty good indicators of the real mother tongue of the speaker. Certain languages don't have prepositions and instead use a system of word endings that English left behind centuries ago. During that period in the history of English word order was irrelevant because of the word endings. In fact, at that time English barely used articles. boy walk store gives you a sense of what might be intended by word order, but in old English the order could be walk store boy and it wouldn't matter because the word endings would do all the work. Some current languages retain traces of these archaic-isms along with object having gender revealing vestigial animist and animatist history of the peoples.
Sir, this is a Wendy's
Hybrid systems will be the way forward until batteries catch up
Electric aircraft are the ultimate 'pie in the sky'....
50 minutes flight followed by 6 hours charging will never be profitable.
You are not talking nonsense but there are interesting developments. A new company in the Netherlands is developing an aircraft for 90 passengers with a range of 1000 km. CATL, the world's largest battery producer so an interested party, says that within five years a range of 2000 or 3000 km will be possible. As China imports most of the oil it consumes it is interested in replacing fuel burning aircraft ( 737MAX! ) with electric aircraft. It will therefore equip its airports with adequate infrastructure. There is a car that can absorb 800 kw, to charge from 10% to 80% in ten minutes, which I assume few chargers can deliver. Large aircraft will have to absorb many megawatts so these are serious investments and it will take time before these aircraft can be used on international routes. But the infrastructure will be developed and also for smaller aircraft and airfields, and will be available for export.
Pipistrel Velis is derived from an aircraft with Rotax engine and is not fully designed for use of an electric motor. If you design for electric power you would naturally put the batteries in the wing. This has major advantages for the structural weight of the aircraft. Also you design the undercarriage for landing at full take off weight. You might well design for motors on the wing to help blow the flaps for better take off performance as the maintenance costs of the motors is low.
Sounds interesting. I do tend to take news about "groundbreaking new batteries" with a grain of salt. I'm not saying it isn't true, there are some promising developments for sure. But range promises without knowing the weight and size of the batteries don't mean much. What I mean by that is, can it carry 90 passengers for 1000km? Or is it a 90 seat aircraft, but for a 1,000km flight it can only carry a fraction of that number. Marketing material is deceptive, especially pre-prototype when looking for investors, and post-prototype where it is generally accepted that all performance numbers (range, endurance etc.) are at MAUW, when it comes to electric aircraft, I have now a few times observed that manufacturers/marketers neglect to honour that unwritten "rule" and will give numbers that's only achievable at lower operating weight.
Developing a 90 pax/1000 km is easily said but essentially magical thinking at this point. 4 years on, the Velis remains the one and only electric airplane that has passed any kind of certification program. CATL have a vested interest in bigging up the prospects for this sector. To say that up to 3000 km “is possible” is very much like saying that travel up to the speed of light is possible. The hard part is engineering a machine that actually approaches these theoretical limits. After 150 years of rigorous development, the production gasoline engine is languishing around the 30% efficiency mark when the theoretical limit with the combustion temperatures routinely achieved in these engines is near 90%. Battery development actually predates the internal combustion engine so I do not see much justification for believing the many engineering challenges between current state of the art and ‘theoretically possible’ are suddenly about to be brushed aside.
Now turning to your comments on the Velis: quote “Velis is derived from an aircraft with Rotax engine and not fully designed for use of an electric motor. If you design for electric power you would naturally put the batteries in the wing. This has major advantage for the structural weight”
Yes it is derived from the Rotax equipped Virus, which seriously outperforms it, and costs less. But batteries in wings? We are looking at an energy source that is around 30 times heavier than avgas per unit propulsive energy required. You cannot put that battery in the wing and save structural weight because 1) it is an order of magnitude more heavy than fuel to begin with 2) the wing structure would have to be strengthened immensely to cope with the landing, so more weight still.
Quote “Also, you design the undercarriage for landing at full take off weight”
The undercarriage of the Virus is already designed for landing at maximum take off mass. That is normal for light aircraft.
Electric power is best suited for sailplanes.
The problem with electric is the battery, nothing else. Lithium sucks and will never get the job done. Hydrocarbons will always win against Lithium. Change the battery to something *much* better, electric wins. Stick with low energy density batteries, and it's all just a dream.
And another thing a battery, motor controler and motor is heavier than an engine,ecu and fuel tank, pound for pound and mile for mile a battery aircraft makes no sense at all
fire in batteries, would be curtains!!! Big time. Junk for drongos in my ignorant view. Cheers.
pipistreal uses old ass lithium batteries, This would fly at least 2/30 hours with NIO's semi solid state batteries. 10:50 I believe going from 180wh/kg to 500wh/kg is a huge leap, and then using silicon to jump to 700wh/kg is also a huge leap. 14:30 I strongly disagree, airplanes can be charged by any EV charging station if they use the same protocol, and in China if you run out of power, you can call the company up to bring you some power, problem solved. OMG the battery packs can only handle 500 hours? Why the f are they using not even EV tech but smartphone grade batteries?
you go for it friend.
@@MsKatjie I like the fact that laptop's have longer lifespan than electric planes that are based on the old gen, while Tesla, NIO, BYD are all ahead by a century.
Gettherites make sense
At this stage i dont think this might work. Definitely not for GA. Not a fan of hydrogen power cells either. Storing hydrogen might be doable only for larger places. And even than it is still a hassle to store. One mistake and it goes boom.
If i was able to get carried away in what ifs:
I do have to wonder how would it work out if one was to take advantage of both. In form of a hybrid propulsion.
Small diesel or even turbine charging the capacitor array. Not too large just able to hold charge for 30min of cruise power.
Looking at this from safety perspective, engine problem accidents could become mere annoyance. No wear on engines due to spikes in power draw. Thus longer life for engines. Turbines running at their optimum efficiency always.
And i heard some talks about some interesting small engines designed for power generation alone.
Or
Those non-rechargeable Aluminum-air batteries do have pretty impressive capacity. Given some standardized ubiquitous easily swapable battery type.
It does look very promising.
Of course this would have to be spearheaded by actual engineers not politicians who are in it only to promote their usually nefarious agenda - thus why we cannot have nice things.
I like the idea of hydrogen, be it ICE or fuel cell, but as you said the problem is storage; in liquid form it needs to be cooled to -253°C, and then you have the evaporation problem. In gas form the tanks would need to be huge to allow acceptable endurance/range, which basically means it's not possible for light aircraft.
Hybrids seem really promising for larger aircraft, and while not as heavy as full electric, are heavier than ICE. But at least it doesn't have the endurance problem of full electric. Hybrids are fairly complex though, and I see almost no light airplane engine manufacturers biting here.
The best solution in my opinion is biofuel. Use the engine technology that exists, with approx 80% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, making it cleaner than full electric. Biofuel is already being made, but production needs to ramp-up though, but EV cars is a political distraction and preventing more funds and focus on biofuel.
@@LetsGoAviate Hydrogen even supposed to leak slowly. Given one of the smallest of radii. 🙂
Interesting. Here in europe biofuels have poor reputation. Essentially being considered to be in that subsidized category. Where efforts to grow plants for them costing almost as much as you get out of them. And agricultural folk point out the toll on soil which gets striped of all nutrients and all moisture after couple of years growing things like rapeseed.
But that is something which i cannot confirm nor deny since i lack any agricultural expertise. Do you have any specific crop in mind for the biofuels ?
@@DirkLarien Interesting about biofuel in europe. Anything to do with the very pro-electric stance, and the threat biofuel poses? Just a wild guess, not based on much.
I know nothing about agriculture, but it seems sugarcane biofuel production in Brazil have been doing very well for many years already.
@@LetsGoAviate That might very well be the case. Each group pushing what they have stakes in and bashing the competition. Guess in order to make any kind of informed opinion one has to become fairly versed in the field.
Oh well.
Sugar cane hmm, that does makes sense for fermentation.
No Lead emissions that lowers IQ of kids living near the airport. Batteries in wings and/or under seats. 2X Higher energy density batteries are already available. Do an update every Year and you will see the technology is fast improving massively. Bigger wings will be required and standard for electric powered aircraft. Wing structure is very lightweight. This will give better range at lower speed and great endurance with electric motors being very efficient at low power compared to gas engines. Battery and motor TBO will be 10000 hrs when the technology is fully evolved.
Ok then lets go through all this.
“No lead emissions”
True enough. Avgas has a lot of ‘lead’. OTOH Jet A has none and is the vast majority of aviation fuel consumed. And lead free avgas has now been certified in the US of A.
“Batteries in wings and/or under seats”
That isn’t happening. Nobody is putting the propulsion batteries into wings because they are far too heavy. Equally, having the large mass concentrated in the fuselage brings structural constraints of its own. The ICE twin sister of the Velis has a Vne literally 50% higher, yet they share the exact same weight.
Nor can those batteries go under seats. They represent a fire hazard that constrains where they can be. There is a lot more that can be said about that.
“2X higher energy density batteries are already available”
No they are not. No other battery has yet been certified as a propulsion battery for aviation. You cannot just put a better cell into the pack because nothing can go into the airplane without being certified. Nor does having 2X higher energy density at cell level translate into 2X higher energy density at pack level. Especially not for aviation where the pack requires rigorous fault tolerance, resistance to thermal runaway, and crashworthiness in order to be certified.
“Do an update every year…”
In other words, go through the costly recertification process every year. See above. Jesus wept. This isn’t like upgrading your smart phone.
“…and you will see the technology is fast improving massively”
The Velis Electro received its type certificate more than 4 years ago. There has been no upgrade in performance.
“Bigger wings will be required and standard for electric aircraft”
Why exactly?
“Wing structure is very lightweight”
Not if you think you are going to put propulsion batteries in there and want to land without breaking the wings off.
“This will give better range at lower speed”
Bigger wings equal more wetted area which is the main source of drag in the cruise where profile drag dominates. Optimising for range requires high aspect ratio which means increasing the ratio of span over chord. There are no free lunches. If you just increase wing area, you get more drag, lower wing loading, bumpy ride. And you don’t need that when you have a hefty mass fraction concentrated in the fuselage. OTOH if you just increase aspect ratio you need a stronger heftier wing structure.
“with electric motors being very efficient at low power compared to gas engines”
True. But after factoring for efficiency you are still looking at more than an order of magnitude disadvantage in net specific range.
“battery and motor TBO will be 10000 hrs when the technology is fully evolved”
That is magical thinking. Reality is electric motors predate ICE engines and have seen abundant service upon which to base the TBO. There is no way you are increasing a 2000 hr TBO by a factor of 5. Battery TBO is 500 hrs so will rise significantly with more service data. But 10k hrs is a pipe dream and any time you try and certify a new cell you are going to attract a conservative TBO until it has proven itself in service. The FAA already had their fingers burned (not a pun) with the ‘Boeing Dreamburner’. None of this is going to happen quickly or cheaply.
reckon? what time period? what leads you to this statement? the 10000 hours battery?
I wondered if you are a pilot or not. Took a few years, but finally the public learned electrics are not ready for prime time , that is ground vehicles, Aviation are even more demanding , and your claim of no fire risks and low maintenance are not supported by real world experiences in ground vehicles. Pipetrial is correct that electric planes are for use with piston airplanes, which happens to be the same with ground vehicles as well. The whole world are waiting for a tech break through in energy storage , for many applications
Only those deluded enough to believe that EVs are even practical. It’s obvious that they are not necessary.
Only those deluded enough to believe that EVs are even practical. It’s obvious that they are not necessary.
No Lead emissions that lowers IQ of kids living near the airport
use more aromatics. eggs have to be broken. you obviously don't know much about battery making. Point they are not without many envo concerns. It seems a political, rather than feasible tech. i freely admit my bias against. cheers
Here is a question to pose to Chat GPT or similar: "can you compare & quantify the emissions between the life cycle of an internal combustion engine car and similarly powered battery electric car? Including manufacturing emissions. Assume that power provided to the electric car is from renewable resources." Then ask for a similar comparison for light aircraft. Battery electric anything (except golf carts) is in it's relative infancy and will supplant ICE in smaller vehicles as battery tech evolves.
as if it would know. reading the shit on the net, should give it a good opinion
there are so many problems in the world right now though ... and i do work on sustainable solutions, but it is still coming back to the no talk topics.
i talked to a glider company about H202 sustainer trhusters ... i don't know the most efficient process to produce H2O2, but the reaction is clean.
then there are the silver catylist screens ... and being able to automate stall protection, with such a sustainer, pilots will no doubt want to recycle their sceens for new ones when questionable.
an electric10 warthog would have no heat signature and the batteries would work as extra armour
- some planes have drop tanks, an electric stratolanch plane with a lifting body between the fuselages would cross the pacific or any continent
Electric motors get VERY hot so not true at all.
@@Mikere5 electric motors get nowhere as hot as turbine ,piston or any combustion engine
@@replica1052 I never said they did - you claimed the electric aircraft "would have no heat signature" and that isn't true at all. Modern electronics can easily detect heat that is only a few degrees above the surroundings. The motors will get a lot hotter than you might imagine and will easily be detected by temperature difference. These aircraft "might" have some advantages but this isn't one of them.
@@Mikere5 modern electronics are far more accurate than a few degrees -heat dilutes over distance
one high explosive phos round in the battery
Electric airplanes are a joke. New combustion tech will be 60% to 75% efficient and RE E-fuels will be $1/gal wholesale, $2/gal retail. No way can EVs compete.
Try 1 gal/hr at 120 mph. 100 gallon is 12,000 miles. Distributed power. 6 engine systems...never come out of air.
Land and take off at 25 mph with power on lift and boundary layer control that can reduce drag b 50%. No stall and spin nonsense.
EVs are a waste of time and money. All will go bankrupt. HINT.
too right mate
In next 10 years? - probably not
But all 5 of your concern is releted to batteries. So, battery advancement= problem solved
But there is a battery breakthrough. CATL's 500 Wh/kg condensed battery, which they claim is already in a prototype aircraft.
yeah simple
Elektrik motor =Good, electric battery = Bad🔋 Solution replace battery whit hydrogen 🎉❤🎉
it.s not a Space shuttle main engine. The container for Hydrogen is heavy??? Leaks through cast Fe!
Hi
I am no pilot but battery aircraft you must be joking who was the numty that granted a n air worthiness ticket for that plane have they not seen enough cars go up in flames while charging and also burst into flames being driven and after relatively light accident damage. I won't have a battery ev as I don't want my house burnt down and I wouldn't get into a battery aircraft because I don't want to burn to death
electric cars are bunk for my circumstances.