From here
Also I regard the e-car predictions as green wet dreams unless new battery and charging technology develops.
Shame that Peter does not want us to drift this thread, else I would have said: “it looks like there have been quite some real wet action if you look at the latest generation of electric cars (300-500 km range) and charging stations popping up everywhere (check out FASTNED in the Netherlands). Plus development of batteries and ultra fast charging is accelerating I would say, maybe not all in plain view”
Electric is also coming for light GA, first for training, but it indeed will take years for serious X-country. 10-20? I would say that this still provides an interesting time span for Rotax to develop a light Diesel. Hard to imagine that they would not have a little Skunk Works corner in their plant doing just that.
In Norway lots of incentives have been put on electric cars. It’s a goal to electrify the entire population of cars. Today the market share is around 20% for pure electric cars, and about 15% for hybrid cars. I have had an electric car for (VW eUp) more than 2 1/2 year, and will never go back.
The common “psychological” error people do with electric cars, is they “think” gasoline/diesel cars also for electric cars. When thinking electric cars, you have to “think” electric cars. For one, people charge at home for 95%. This is consistent with statistics showing people use their cars for < 100 km rides for 95% of the time. Thus the need for gas stations (fast charging) for electric cars is a tiny fraction of the need for gasoline/diesel.
Tesla, when they started selling cars here, also installed fast charges all over Norway, so people could use their cars all over for longer trips. Charging here is free for life, seemingly an unbelievable offer by Tesla. Buy a Tesla, and you never need to purchase fuel again. Still, people charge at home for 95% of the cases. Fast charging is ONLY used for the 5% need for long distance travel, because it is practical and cheap. The visionary capability of Elon Musk is mind boggling, who would have thought this for 5 years ago, only Elon Musk. Anyway, a Tesla is a true all around electric car. It’s not cheap today by any standard, but the 3 series is much cheaper, it will come in 2018, and I have already reserved one 
In 2-3 years, electric cars will be cheaper than gasoline/diesel (in all of Europe), and the average endurance will be 300-400 km. Then the sales of gasoline/diesel cars will halt with a huge bang. It will literally stop over night, just wait and see.
Tesla has recently stopped the “free charging for life” program, at least here in Germany. 7 percent of all electricity in Germany is solar. No nuklear power plants anymore in the future.
Model 3 has no free charging program either, but model S still has it. Of course you pay for that as well, when purchasing the car, and if you hardly use it? well, you pay for something you don’t use. Still, it seems like an unreal offer for many, and for those who use the car mainly for long distance travel, it is a good offer indeed. In the 2 1/2 years I have had my eUp, I have used fast charger once, my wife twice. It charges at home every night, and at work sometimes, slow charging 6 kW.
This is a good video showing the current state of the technology
As I mentioned in the Chinese TB20 thread, it can only be a matter of before the only limiting factor, battery energy density, is sufficient to compete with avgas…then why not IFR tourers?
As I also mentioned, the noise footprint is significantly lower with the absence of an exhaust pointing down… the primary issue light aircraft objectors (haters) have is noise….presumably the sound of an electric fan overhead would be far more palatable…meaning less pressure to limit or shut down airfield operations and even starting a new airfield (in your backyard) may be more feasible if it is limited to electric operations… could be the dawn of a new golden age of personal flying!
I don’t think the current average flying population is ready for an all electric plane, if something as plain vanilla as electronic ignition with distributed induction coils is shot down as a lousy idea because “the Ford Cortina i had in the early 80es used to stop in heavy rain due to water ingress”.
All-electric? Imagine the uproar.
Remember the uproar when Mooney packed two batteries on its PFM? All the US pundits explained how that’s a bad idea (despite the fact that now it is common practice). Now take the same population and tell them no more manual mixture setting, no more LOP / ROP discussions, no more injection icing (shudder).
Having started the “off topic / political” thread I think we need a “zero information / sneering” thread, where I can move most of your posts, Shorrick. Can you really not manage to write anything better? I already have to delete some of your posts because they are offensive.
Shorrick_Mk2 wrote:
I don’t think the current average flying population is ready for an all electric plane
I am But an electric aircraft as a trainer, is that a good idea? In a SEP, managing/monitoring the engine is a major part. With an electric aircraft, there really is no managing/monitoring to do, it’s all automatic, and it’s mostly the battery that needs monitoring in any case. That can only be done by a computer. It will only be a single lever, and no monitoring or managing to do. The leap from this to a Lycoming with 3 levers, RPM, MP, FP, CHT, EGT, OP, OT, mags etc etc is a very substantial one.
Airlines have realised long ago that a computer can manage an engine a lot more effectively than a human. however, owing to disproportionately developed egos the GA population still fights that anathema tooth and nail. So the problem isn’t “is it wise to have a transition from one levers to three levers” but rather “is it wise to think I can do a repetitively minute task better than a computer, considering I am not even sure what parameters I should adhere to”.
Sure the engine is optimised (haha) for cruise and supposedly once you set it up you don’t need to touch it. Well except maybe when you apply negative Gs, the oil pickup unports, the engine overspeeds and that wonder of “reliable tech” called a magneto explodes before you get to 120% max rpm. However most engine damage is done during high workload periods e.g. takeoff and climb – so while having an engine that is “optimised” for cruise is great, having an engine that requires particular attention when you don’t have much of it to distribute doesn’t strike me as particularly thoughtful engineering.
We also get the “it’s too expensive for what it does” whine (apparently spending 50k on an engine destroyed by a broken mag however is not) – well, as with all IT capex, if you don’t spend constantly the gap eventually becomes so huge there’s going to be no catching up regardless of how much money you throw at it.
