The Coming Disruption of Transport

[nfitz]

^^ That's a possibility for these tiny little planes but impossible for large national carriers who make up 99% of all air traffic.

Why? What's the difference between loading and unloading a pallet of air-freight compared to loading and unloading a battery module?

It's not like they empty all the pallets, and then load them back on the same plane.

 

[afransen]

Of course this guy is forgetting one key point.......................downtime. It would take hours to recharge these batteries and time is money.

Also these micro planes account for next to nothing in terms of passengers carried worldwide on a daily basis. Batteries are completely useless for any major carrier and will be for MANY decades to come. Airbus & Boeing already know this which is why they are not investing in battery plane technology. Both however are investing in the ONLY viable option...............hydrogen.

Airlines are a penny business. If an aircraft costs half to power, it doesn't matter if it has to sit for 60, 90 minutes to recharge between flights. Hydrogen will struggle on short haul against battery planes because it inherently costs 2-3x. There are many short haul routes that are ripe for picking. Even for cross-continental flights, passengers might be willing to switch planes for lower airfare if they can fly powered by batteries vs hydrogen/hydrocarbons.

These planes are small... for now. They can and will be scaled.

 

[lenaitch]

The next challenge is capacity at airports. I think EVTOLs for short-haul would be quite advantageous. It have the benefit of being able to bring you closer to your destination.

The the weight of the batteries required for vertical lift of anything much larger than a drone or perhaps an ultralight, and still have any range left, probably exceeds the ability to lift it.

With 'the next battery breakthrough' always just around the corner, who knows.

I'd have assumed that the way to do it, is to have the batteries as modular for easy removal, and just swap out the batteries for a freshly charged set at the gate. I'd think that would be faster than swapping out the baggage! Of course you'd have to stage batteries and chargers everywhere - but not difficult for regular routes.

The certification and safety standards for the handling and repeated electrical connection of large, high-energy density batteries would be interesting. There are special handling rules surrounding Li-I batteries when just stowed as cargo. .

 

[afransen]

The the weight of the batteries required for vertical lift of anything much larger than a drone or perhaps an ultralight, and still have any range left, probably exceeds the ability to lift it.

There are literally dozens of companies working on this, with varying approaches.

 

[crs1026]

^My impression of the duty cycle of an aircraft engine is that it is heavily loaded on takeoff, moderately loaded during flight, and mostly not loaded during landing.

One wonders (I’m clearly not an airplane expert) if a hybrid-auto style mixed propulsion could bridge the gap, keeping battery loading light enough while providing enough carbon reduction to help the economics.That might create a credible sized aircraft that could serve Canadian short haul markets. I don’t see VIA being too threatened by a swarm of 9-passenger electric planes, but 1-2 craft that could replace one A220 might pose a threat.

Just spitballing.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

^Wikipedia is my friend. See here. It mentions e-boost systems already being explored.
I had never really looked for data on air fuel consumption per seat-mile. Even for connections to long distance flights, four- passenger electric AV shuttles from say Ottawa to Dorval would likely offer comparable trip time (accounting for home to airport commute time) and better fuel and carbon economy than an e-plane shuttle.

- Paul

 

[ssiguy2]

I don't know about the feasibility of "hydrid planes" but even if they are potentially feasible, they should not be endorsed. They will simply be used as a "better than oil" half measure much like many natural gas companies saying that it's cleaner burning than oil but omitting the fact that it is still an incredibly polluting fossil fuel. Also, air travel now makes up 12% of all transportation emissions and it is the fastest growing emissions sector due to the explosion of air travel in the last 20 years especially in China.

We MUST completely decarbonize our transportation sector if we are to meet our 2050 targets and hydrogen is the only option. Yes in half a century, battery planes maybe feasible for long haul trips as the technology advances but the reality is that we don't have 50 years. Hell, we don't even have 30 years so we must decarbonize with the most viable energy source we have right now and for air travel, that hydrogen.

 

[crs1026]

I don't know about the feasibility of "hydrid planes" but even if they are potentially feasible, they should not be endorsed. They will simply be used as a "better than oil" half measure much like many natural gas companies saying that it's cleaner burning than oil but omitting the fact that it is still an incredibly polluting fossil fuel.

Just because a first hint of a technology exists on paper, or maybe on a test bed, does not mean we can skip the steps of proving and improving it.

For something as safety sensitive as airflight, it will be decades before battery, solar, or any other technology has enough bugs out to have widespread acceptance. We don't know what we don't know yet.

The Prius has been around for what - twenty-four years now? No one ran out in 1997 and threw out the internal combustion engine just because a production version of a hybrid auto technology was available. The many hybrid autos that have emerged since then have been reasonable and necessary iterations towards a crucial technical goal. I would see new forms of airflight evolving similarly. It will take just as long.

- Paul

 

[afransen]

I don't know about the feasibility of "hydrid planes" but even if they are potentially feasible, they should not be endorsed. They will simply be used as a "better than oil" half measure much like many natural gas companies saying that it's cleaner burning than oil but omitting the fact that it is still an incredibly polluting fossil fuel. Also, air travel now makes up 12% of all transportation emissions and it is the fastest growing emissions sector due to the explosion of air travel in the last 20 years especially in China.

We MUST completely decarbonize our transportation sector if we are to meet our 2050 targets and hydrogen is the only option. Yes in half a century, battery planes maybe feasible for long haul trips as the technology advances but the reality is that we don't have 50 years. Hell, we don't even have 30 years so we must decarbonize with the most viable energy source we have right now and for air travel, that hydrogen.

Hydrogen may or may not be the ideal chemical energy storage medium. It might end up being ammonia, etc. Hydrogen poses a lot of problems for aircraft design.

 

[Johnny Au]

Hydrogen may or may not be the ideal chemical energy storage medium. It might end up being ammonia, etc. Hydrogen poses a lot of problems for aircraft design.

We tried hydrogen aircraft a century ago, albeit in the form of airships.

We knew how that went:

Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

[lenaitch]

A couple of articles I forgot to link the other day on the challenges facing electric aircraft development:

No flying Tesla? That's because electric planes are a steeper challenge than electric cars

Thousands of electric cars are on the road, with many more set to join them over the next few years.

www.latimes.com

Why aren’t there electric airplanes yet?

The battery technology and cooling systems needed for electric aircraft to lift people and cargo are getting closer to reality, but they’re still very different from electric cars and trucks.

theconversation.com

 

[crs1026]

^In addition to battery weight and output, there’s the whole question of certifying the airframe. One can’t simply swap out the current engines for electrics….the whole weight distribution of the aircraft, and therefore the whole control logic, has to be developed and tested. Look at how changing the engines on the B-737 led to its redesign, and look at where that led when they got one part of that wrong. We may not see a commercial scale e-plane in this generation.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

VIA will have a hard time competing against electric aircraft in the corridor. It is also challenge the value in building HSR if air travel's negative externalities are dramatically cut by going zero emissions.

Aerospace engineer here. I call BS.

There's just no way to get the batteries dense enough to be able to power the 140-190 seat aircraft that is standard on the TOM triangle. Let alone replace trains that carry hundreds of passengers.

And if the batteries do get that kind of performance? Well, VIA will be able to deploy them to fully electrify its service and reduce costs further.

Lastly, the big issue in aviation isn't fuel cost. It's infrastructure. There are only so many slots available at Pearson. And airlines don't want to use them flying 50 seaters to London or 100 seaters to Montreal. They want to use it on a 777 with 300+ pax flying to Tokyo or London.

 

[afransen]

I saw a story about a researcher making structural battery cells. They don't have great energy density, but could replace much of the structure in vehicles.

 

[kEiThZ]

I saw a story about a researcher making structural battery cells. They don't have great energy density, but could replace much of the structure in vehicles.

There's advances to be sure. But there's no realistic prospect of anything that would replace a 100 seater before 2050.