Electric Planes Are Coming

Electric Planes are the future
Who would have thought, only 10 years ago thinking or even having an electric car was a remote possibility, Tesla was about to launch Roadster and talks of electric car revolution was just crazy talk. As the saying goes, one swallow doesn’t make a spring. Well in this case, one swallow, or 2500 Tesla Roadsters indeed means spring for electric cars.

4 years after Tesla Roadster was launched, production of Tesla Model S started and the rest is history, today over million electric cars are being driven on our roads, all EU car makers plan to go completely electric by 2025 and even some of the most unexpected countries are turning their backs on petrol cars, India plans to go all electric by 2030.

You could say electric car revolution has truly taken place and there’s no going back, electric cars are here to stay. Electric Cars, Electric Trucks and Lories, electric bikes, why not electric planes ?
Imagine a world where pollution is a thing of the past, bio-plastics that degrade within weeks of being used, fossil fuels a thing of the past, nature that is clean of toxic and environmental waste created by incessant human consumption of natural resources, and above in our skies fly electric planes that do not pollute air we breathe.
The fact the things are moving in the right direction can be seen on a daily basis, once most polluting segment of mass transport might soon also join the electric revolution, and things do look encouraging, in not too distant future electric planes will be the next big thing.

Recently EasyJet and US based start-up, Wright electric, agreed to develop first commercial passenger aircraft, capable of 540km range, powered purely with electric propulsion. The company Wright Electric hopes to have passenger aircraft ready by 2030, with EasyJet keen to operate 150 such aircraft with in decade from first electric aircraft service entry.

Although, it is not clear if Wright Electric is working on new battery technology or intends to use current battery technology. Problem with the current battery technology, although improving with each passing year, is power density, with current battery achieving barely half of what is required for an passenger aircraft.
“The issue with existing batteries is that they suck,” Elon Musk famously said. And the technology entrepreneur, in all his eloquence, has a point – how often has your smartphone died halfway through the day or your laptop screen faded to black during a meeting?

Battery power density is Critical, The need to keep weight down without sacrificing range or power makes energy density the all-important figure. Right now, the specific energy of batteries is roughly 2 to 3 percent that of liquid fuel. Factor in the efficiency of electric powertrains compared to internal combustion engines, brings efficiency closer to 7 percent—so 1,000 kilogram of jet fuel yields about 14 times more energy than a 1,000-kilogram battery.
Battery energy density is rising by a not negligible 2 to 3 percent per year. Tesla’s cars go farther with each iteration. “It’s not the same ballpark as Moore’s Law progress because it’s chemistry, not electronics, but it’s still very good.” Besides, batteries don’t need to match liquid fuel pound for pound to catch on. If it can get to five times its current density—that would be 1,000 watt-hours per kilogram—it would work for small-scale commercial aviation. “That 1000 watt-hours/kg number reflects the approximate equivalent of one third the energy density of gasoline, factoring the relative differences in efficiency of the powertrains, that’s when we can expect batteries to be good enough to power small aircraft for practical uses.”

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