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Congrats! They look beautiful and seem to be a perfect blend of elegance and futuristic propulsion!I ordered a Pipistrel Taurus Electro. Lots of information about it earlier in this thread. Initial indication was for delivery in September.
If all airlines switched to electric planes, does that mean airplane noise would not be an issue anymore?
That same EU program also aims to reduce aircraft noise by half by 2050. And that, it turns out, is the greatest motive of the airline industry right now. Just to get around restrictions on nighttime flights, airlines sometimes spend money to muffle their older, louder planes, a job called “hush kitting.”
“That was the biggest surprise when Siemens started talking to airlines,” Anton says. “I was always mentioning quiet operation as the third thing, after energy and emissions. Now it’s the first thing.”
This wouldn’t be the first green technology to succeed for reasons having little to do with global warming. People bought the hybrid Prius to save on gas; they buy the Tesla to out-accelerate a Porsche. Airlines will buy hybrid-electric airplanes for their quiet operation, and lower greenhouse gas emissions will come almost as a side effect. But they will come.
Would you mind sharing more about the rumor? Was Elon seen there and the visit purpose simply deduced from the location? Did you hear it directy from someone who claim to know? Is it discussed online? …?Currently an unconfirmed rumor that Elon is looking for or has purchased property near the airport at Lake Havasu City, Arizona for construction/ testing of aircraft. Source seems to be honest/ truthful.
Thoughts?
I hope this will be a Tesla project because bringing electric aircrafts is obviosly part of Tesla's mission ("Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy"), contrary to any other Musk's enterprises. Launching another company for electric aircraft would make both companies compete in more ways than SpaceX (or Boring Co) & Tesla do already.Currently an unconfirmed rumor that Elon is looking for or has purchased property near the airport at Lake Havasu City, Arizona for construction/ testing of aircraft. Source seems to be honest/ truthful.
Thoughts?
Elon thinks 400 Wh/kg is sufficient:As I mentioned in the investors thread, I don't believe that rumour to be true. Let me explain why.
Elon has obviously a keen interest in making this happen, unfortunately aviation, unlike ground transportation, is not a low hanging fruit for transition to sustainable energy, with the exception of very short range applications such as eVTOLS. As soon as you look at anything beyond 100-150 miles, the weight of the batteries becomes very problematic. At least 800-1000 Wh/kg energy densities are needed before we can start talking medium ranges (400-800 miles), forget about long ranges.
Also worth mentioning that, IMHO, Hyperloop is going to be a formidable competitor to aviation at some point, even on transcontinental ranges. Reason is that an aircraft spends most of its energy pushing molecules of air out of its way, and Hyperloop in vacuum enjoys mind blowing energy efficiencies.
For intercontinental travel, well there isVomit CometStarShip point-to-point.
Elon often refers to an electric VTOL supersonic electric jet that he is thinking about, but to me that sounds more like pointing towards something absurdly difficult as a matter of thought process. I just don't see a way to make this work, unless you consider battery energy densities well into the thousands of Wh/kg.
So there was again a recent interview with Elon where he talked about his vision for electric planes with a lot of partly new and good information about how he looks on this concept. To me it seems everytime he is asked about he expresses a really big interest in going forward with the concept, but always says the he has to prioritize. There was a lot of good discussion on this in the "Elon Musk" thread that perhaps should be moved to this thread, or made in to a new thread ("Elon Musks vision for Electric planes" or something).
Anyway, since I wanted to hear him answer the question about electric planes again I thought I might aswell transcribe his answer for the record here:
AeroAstro Centennial Webcast (question starts at 37.22)
Interviewer: As much as we love Teslas, we are an aeronautics department and we are really interested in the potential for electric aircraft.
Elon: Sure, I love the idea of an electric aircraft. Everything will go fully electric, except for rockets. [Laugh] Ironic.
Interviewer: We think that in terms of energy density, to make transport aircraft physical, you will need improvements in the order of 10 to 100.
Elon: What! No, that's not... Wait, when you say 10 to 100 from what baseline? What do you mean?
Interviewer: A current Ion-Lithium...
Elon: Oh no, no no definately not. So, in my opinion at least, where we are right now at roughly, you know for a cell that doesn't have lots of other draw-backs, which people always forget to mention when they talk about battery break-throughs, there are many parameters that are important for a battery, and hardly a week goes by without some big break through - alledgedly - in batteries but the ******** factor is outrageous. But for real cells, that actually work and don't have some huge draw-back, they're currently at about 300 Wh/kg. To have a compelling aircraft you only really need about 400 Wh/kg - provided the percentage of cell on the aircraft is high. It doesn't need to be anywhere as high as it is on a rocket, but if it's at the sort of 70% level at 400 Wh/kg you can do very decent range. And if you move it up to sort of mid to high 70's you can go transcontinental. Not intercontinental but sort of west coast to east coast. You need an efficient aircraft but that's approximately, by my calculations, the numbers you need: 400 Wh/kg mid to high 70's cell to mass fraction. Which I think is achievable numbers. Aircrafts have all these unnessecary things like tails, rudders and elevators - like "not needed". [Laughing]. Just gimbal the electric fan. For some wierd reason gimballing motors is normal in rockets and not in aircraft. Why not?
Interviewer: Ok, definate plans to get in to this business and we'd love to see how things develop in that particular area. Do you have any specific plans?
Elon: I mean, I have been sort of toying with the design for an electric supersonic vertical take-off and landing aircraft for a while. I'd love to do it. But I think my mind would explode, like the brains worn out or saturated from working on electric cars and rockets.
Elon thinks 400 Wh/kg is sufficient:
How important is the aircraft landing weight ? I assume the used fuel during flight would help with landing and stopping the plane.
Is this a small factor to consider ?
Did it actually fly like in the video and was it a manned flight?
Are these guys going public ? -- anyway to invest in them ?