Such short endurance is a joke. Not because most flights can’t be done in 1hr but because an actual endurance of 1.something hrs leaves you with zero options.
On weekends I like to fly aircraft with 0 seconds fuel endurance!
While this particular aircraft isn’t going to be useful as a transport machine, like a glider, it may be useful for some recreational flyers. I don’t go on trips in gliders, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some fun flights in them. I suspect battery powered aircraft will remain niche sport aircraft for the forseeable future, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth developing and flying (after all people find gliders worth developing and flying despite their lack of transport utility)
If Vasimr turns out not to be pie-in-the-sky, it could even be the saviour of rockets. OK, you need a bit of fuel too.
And if fossil fuels get displaced sufficiently, the governments will have to raise taxes on other stuff.
Why is that a problem? Nobody claims electric vehicles are there to reduce the cost of individual transport.
As soon as they see taxes from fossil fuels fall significantly, they will move to new taxes. In the UK, they put up the diesel fuel tax immediately diesel car sales became significant – they burn probably 1/2 of the fuel per mile of petrol cars, on average.
Tax on electricity in Germany is very much comparable to tax on fossil fuels. I pay 0.25€/kWh, more than 3 times what it costs in France. Filling the tank of my electric car costs me the same as the diesel fuel required to drive the same distance would cost me in a modern car.
Renewable doesn’t work on a large scale. The wind farms collect more money from subsidies than from electricity users. It’s is a subsidy collection scam – one of many in Europe.
If something receives subsidies, it doesn’t have to be a scam. Subsidies are there to create a market reaction that would not be there without them. Often it goes wrong or achieves little with a lot of input. I don’t see a reason why renewables shouldn’t be able to compete. Norway has been almost 100% renewable electricity for a long time. Germany is at 25-30% now and it will grow significantly when they are done putting billions in cross country DC power lines.
Electric propulsion is coming, I have no doubt. It is already much better than most people think (I would never go back form my electric car to an ICE car) and there will be significant advances in technology.
I suspect battery powered aircraft will remain niche sport aircraft for the forseeable future
I would call piston aircraft a niche and a dying market. I asked an LBA employee if they are really completely indifferent to the hoard of Cessnas leaving the German register due to SIDs. He said yes, they are because overall they still have growth on the register. E-class (German for SEP < 2t) has been declining for a long time but A-class (Airbus etc.) is growing and gliders are growing very fast. He thought it is not a bad thing if a Cessna is sent to the junkyard and a new glider comes instead.
If I look around, SEP is old men sticking to old habits and gliders are eager young guys. The travel utility value of motorized planes is very small and declining but the fun of flying remains to be there. The Airbus project is an important input.
Peter, fusion is really just ticking over at this point, not withstanding the French enthusiasm in Cadarache. However, there is a substantial effort now being put into new ways of burning fission ‘waste’ (i.e. not using fast breeder reactors) and I think that may be the best hope for meaningful new electric energy production over the next few hundred years, other than existing fossil fuels. One benefit of electric ground vehicles is that they will free up gasoline for use in planes, where high power density will continue to be particularly beneficial.
The downside of electrification, particularly in Europe, is the ever increasing tendency towards a totalitarian state and removal of personal freedoms and property rights. I agree that central control of energy production in high capital cost facilities tends to accelerate that trend.
Its also been perfectly apparent since the forced adoption of Mode S in Europe that the end game for governments is direct, automated taxation of air travel.
I can well see Electricity being the future. Even if the generation of the electricity is no cleaner than the current system (I’m not saying it isn’t …just even if it isn’t) then at least it’s concentrated in one place (the power station) where additional technologies can be put in place to catch it before it escapes.
But a 75 min endurance is going to be pointless.
I take that point that many flights last less time than that, but I think that misses the point. The question is who would buy it?
It’s going to cost €150k+ at minimum. Probably a lot more.
A private buyer will want something that can take them places for that price, and 30 minutes from home (45nm) with a 45 min reserve isn’t really going to give them enough bang for their buck.
For a flight school, the fuel saving might be interesting and as said, most of their flights are less than 1 hour, but it has some very damming problems for them.
1. A student qualified on it, won’t be allowed to fly regular aircraft because they’ll have no experience of carb heat, mixture, etc.
2. It’s incapable of taking them on the qualifying cross country
3. Will they trust a student or renter with such a short endurance?
4. (Probably most importantly) Once it’s landed from a session, it will probably be on the ground for quite a long time recharging before it can be used again. Not what you want after shelling out a large capital outlay for it.
I’ve little doubt electric aircraft will be popular in the future, but they will need much more endurance first.
A private buyer will want something that can take them places for that price, and 30 minutes from home (45nm) with a 45 min reserve isn’t really going to give them enough bang for their buck.
Really? I would estimate that 50% of the aircraft stationed at my airfield are not used for going to places. Glider pilots don’t go to places and flight simmers don’t either. The huge crowd of flight simmers are potential users of such modern, clean aircraft. Is the “L2K” thing really “going to places” or just an excuse to enjoy a pointless flight? I can imagine having a lot of fun with such a machine. Endurance will only get better over time. Somebody has to start somewhere. Tesla is more successful than expected, BMW’s i3 is seeing twice the demand expected.
A student qualified on it, won’t be allowed to fly regular aircraft because they’ll have no experience of carb heat, mixture, etc.
Most students are ATPL students and there it does not matter at all. You don’t learn how to use carb heat on a C172SP or a DA40 either. It cannot be coincidence that the Airbus vehicle is built like a jet with two ducted fans. That can have tremendous advantages for FTOs. Most ATPL students never fly a SEP beyond their minimum hours required for the integrated course.
One of the main goals of this project is actually lowering the noise levels. This is also the main reason for using a ducted fan, it allows you to have much faster propeller speeds with a lot less noise. Noise is one of the biggest enemies of GA in populated areas. If we want acceptance, we have to become quieter and cleaner.
Once it’s landed from a session, it will probably be on the ground for quite a long time recharging before it can be used again. Not what you want after shelling out a large capital outlay for it.
It could have replaceable battery packets but I think it is more likely to support fast charging which appears to be the future (see the bankruptcy of Shai Agassi’s company and the total lack of interest in its concept). A Renault Zoe with 22kWh battery can be charged in half an hour with standard AC 43kW chargers. My car can be charged with 50kW DC and supposedly soon 75kW DC (a 20kWh battery). The Airbus prototype has 4.8kWh battery capacity. Fast charging has come a very long way.
4. (Probably most importantly) Once it’s landed from a session, it will probably be on the ground for quite a long time recharging before it can be used again. Not what you want after shelling out a large capital outlay for it.
Not necessarily. I haven’t read all the details, but if you have a swappable battery compartment, you simply slide the depleted set out and the fully charged one in. Should be done in a couple of minutes.
I can see two main uses for this type of aircraft:
1) Flight training. Many schools / airfields are greatly encumbered by noise issues raised by the NIMBY brigade. Electric airplanes should go a long way to mitigate that problem, potentially also extending the operating hours, thus increasing revenue for the school. For pattern work the endurance is plenty.
2) Proof of concept, technology testbed. If these airplanes are out in the wild in any significant numbers, then Airbus get some pretty decent data from that fleet. Think about Beta testing…..
While this particular aircraft isn’t going to be useful as a transport machine, like a glider, it may be useful for some recreational flyers.
Aerobatics for instance. 15-20 mins endurance and 6-700 hp. There are lots of possibilities. Hybrid solutions will also work. A small and compact piston engine directly coupled to a generator could extend the flight for hours. According to the specs, the total battery capacity of the E-Fan battery package is 120 4 V cells of 40 Ah per cell, or 4800 Ah at 4 V. The endurance is 75 min, so on average the power is 15.36 kW or 20.6 hp. A 10.3 hp engine will double the endurance to 2 h 30 mins. But then again with a 20.6 hp engine you could toss out the whole electrical equipment and all the batteries. The only downside with that is you won’t have the 60 kW available for take off and the cool looking dual electric ducted fans 
Electric flight is still early, but it is very exciting stuff.
I agree with Peter that our lovely bureaucrats will not quietly sit by and watch their biggest income – fuel tax – just erode away. If someone is under the delusion that government work is without self interest, then they’ll be rudely awakened. They don’t give a damn about your health in the form of tobacco tax for example, or else they’d outlawed tobacco completely decades ago! They’re more than willing to sacrifice public health for a grubby penny. Anything run by man, can not be devoid of self interest.
The good thing with electric is that generating it is not proprietary. We can’t make fuel in our backyards, but we can make electricity. Big oil will not have the captive market anymore. And there’s no way government can tax that fully. They can tax the use of the airspace and roads, and that’s probably what they’ll do. But in the meantime, it might just offer GA a respite: Cheaper technology, cheaper to run, more safe, etc, etc. It might just be enough to grow our battered field slightly. And if it grows, then it will be harder for them shut down airports, force airway charges on us etc. We need to became more – we are only strong in numbers. Today they can walk all over us. Imagine if there were as many private planes as cars? They wouldn’t stand a chance with their shenanigans.
So anything that has the possibility to grow GA, is a good thing in my book. And electric aircraft will be cheaper to run and operate for the foreseeable future until they catch on to the missed taxes. But by then there might be more of us.
