Name: Why Don't We Have Electric Planes Yet?
Uploaded: 2021-05-16T16:12:02.000Z
Duration: 15 min 39 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The invention of flight has been one of the most profound technologies in

history. And for the past century it has functioned pretty much the same

The advent of lithium ion batteries and electric propulsion technologies

is igniting a revolution in transportation.

Everything from cars to trucks and buses are going electric.

We call this the third revolution in aviation.

The first was the piston engine that enabled the Wright brothers to fly

their first flight. The second was the jet engine, which only really was

And we think the third revolution is electric propulsion.

CO2 emissions and the environmental impact they pose has moved to the

forefront of public attention and has been one of the driving forces in

The aviation industry is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse

gas emissions. And unlike cars, aviation is often excluded from national

climate plans because it operates across borders.

Between flight and commercial, shipping constitutes about 5 percent of our

And these are some of the hardest CO2 to decarbonize.

Aircraft emissions are a real serious problem.

It's projected to be up to 25 percent of the entire global carbon budget

According to a 2018 report on CO2 emissions from commercial aviation,

there was a 32 percent increase in emissions over the five years leading

up to the study. And with the FAA estimating the number of airline

billion by 2038, planes will be a big source of pollution for years to

come. Jet fuel is also one of the biggest operating costs for airlines,

and electric motors have fewer parts to repair and maintain, making them a

When you look at a jet engine, there's thousands of moving parts.

A turboprop has 7,000 to 10,000 moving parts.

And you have to every 3,000 hours spend hundreds of thousands of dollars

There's one moving part in an electric motor in a plane.

An electric propulsion system can reduce cost of ownership or cost of

But not only do you have lower maintenance costs, but you also have lower

costs in terms of actually providing the energy required to go from one

With so many benefits, why is it we have yet to see the electric vehicle

Some fundamental problem with electric aircraft has always been that a

good lithium ion battery cell has one fortieth of the energy content of

And so if you were to take an existing airplane and you take out all the

fuel and you take out the engines and the fuel systems and replace those

with only batteries, then you would only fly one twentieth as far.

While the electrification of aviation has been slow to start, the

technology is starting to look more feasible.

So there's been a significant enough revolution and improvement in the

performance of batteries, which the automotive industry is really driving.

It is extremely promising that one of these battery technologies can be

So the real question is, is not when will we have electric airplanes?

It's when will the time come where we can have electric airplanes that fly

far enough to then start replacing conventionally fueled air transport?

The first area to be serviced with electric aircraft will be short

regional flights. But battery electric flight is still in early

development. Some of the planes that have flown have been demonstrated.

And they actually don't even have the weight to carry passengers right

now. But the batteries are going to improve.

Pipistrel is one of the few all electric plane manufacturers actually

Because of limited range and capacity, they're primarily used as trainer

aircraft. Recently, Harbour Air in Vancouver, Canada, partnered with

MagniX to take its fleet of seaplanes all electric.

It just completed its first successful flight and is beginning the

Israeli startup Eviation Aircraft showed off its all electric nine-seat

aircraft in summer 2019 at the Paris Air Show.

The company claims the plane will be capable of flying up to 650 miles and

that customers have placed more than 150 orders.

The startup hopes to begin testing in 2020.

There's companies out there, like Bye Aerospace and Pipistrel, that are

doing, I think, amazing things in the light sport and the trainer aircraft

market, where they could go straight to electric with those vehicles and

the cost of ownership and the operational cost benefits are really, really

compelling. Until battery tech improves, hybrid electric aircraft is what

will be utilized for larger capacity flights going longer distances.

A hybrid electric aircraft would be an aircraft that would leverage an

electric motor and electric propulsion in addition to the traditional fuel

So one can imagine, just like you would have a hybrid electric car, you

So what we've done is we've taken a very, very successful Honeywell

helicopter engine and we've mounted it with a special gearbox to two of

So in total, this machine generates 400 kilowatts of power, which is

Ampaire is one startup working on and testing hybrid electric aircraft.

The first plane that Ampaire flew is our electric eel, and that's a six

seat aircraft, the largest hybrid electric aircraft that's ever flown.

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Why Don't We Have Electric Planes Yet?

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