Electric Planes: They Have Arrived

The Current State of Electric Aircraft Technology, a research backed investigation.

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It’s no surprise NASA is developing an electric aircraft. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is absolutely convinced we’ll be flying in long distance electric passenger planes in the future. Companies like Rolls-Royce, Boeing, and Airbus are all exploring aircraft electrification. So what does the future hold?

We collaborated with aerospace engineers, NASA scientists, and veteran pilots to sort through the current electric aircraft research and evaluate the most promising new technologies based on performance, practicality, and economics.

We’ll provide a comprehensive overview of electric airplane technology, discuss the benefits and challenges, and then rank the most revolutionary electric planes. We discuss battery electric aircraft, hybrid aircraft, hydrogen aircraft and everything in between.

This piece primarily focuses on the state of the art in fixed wing electric aircraft for long distance passenger travel. EVTOL’s will be covered separately, as part of our ongoing series exploring the future of electric aviation.

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Gentle Kisses on Both Cheeks European Style:
Organizations:

[ElectricFuture]

The FAA recently contacted me and requested permission to use this video in official training materials on powertrain electrification. So if you’re here from the FAA, sorry for the bad jokes.

[Nosonuk]

This is one of those rare cases where I thought "I'll watch a few minutes and see how it goes" and 42 minutes later, I'm still watching.
This is presented far better than most of the big TV science channels manage.
Thanks

[CowboyOdie]

Good video. My major concern it the extreme “all or nothing” mentality when it comes to “zero emission” and “all electric” vehicles. The hybrid engines you mentioned are good examples of necessary compromise - but such a compromise is unacceptable today. Pollitics of the moment would never accept 95% or 99% electric. Case in point, todays fully electric vehicles could double their efficiency and range with a very small, very simple propane heater (to warm the batteries and passenger compartments - saving precious battery charge for propulsion).

[doyennesavant]

there is absolutely NO promising results in battery research .. all this hype needs be stopped.. we have pushed material based batteries to it's very physical and chemical boundaries and there is NO scalable improvement in sight. Yes there are marginal improvements that keep happening but in order to support applications such as fully electric commercial planes, we need a game changing leap in the battery industry that increases capacity and lowers weight by orders of magnitude. This phase is not even opened up yet, let alone if it does and then becomes commercialized decades later. For now, we are taking baby steps in switching some functions in planes to electric, adopting a hybrid model. Battery industry is based on the same concepts of 200 years ago and no improvement will take us anywhere without a major overhaul of battery fundamentals.

[flexwinggpipi]

Yep, this vid answered all my questions that electric aircraft are coming.... but what about the ever increasing weight of the passenger.. Mmm

[robertgiggie]

860 lbs of battery for 100 miles vs 318lbs full fuel load for 850 miles.

We need a break through in battery technology before this is even remotely feasible.

[Cooe.]

Hydrogen (which makes little sense for cars) makes way, WAY more sense for most planes than battery electric.

[drofwarcnwahs]

Until there is a significant breakthrough in improving the power density to weight ratio it will remain a novelty. I wish them the best. They also have to figure out a way to ecologically dispose of these batteries along with eliminating the strip mining necessary to obtain the ore to build them.

[Delali]

The amount of information in this video alone is amazing.

Thanks for putting this together

[thomasboomer]

Batteries remain the biggest hurdle to overcome. Even short hops are not reasonable. As a frequent business traveler, I know there are weather events that can keep a plane from landing and keep you in the air an extra hour or more. Electric planes cannot stay in the air an extra hour.

[gordonpeden]

Another day, and I've learnt something new. I had no idea Electric Planes were even a 'Thing' Jaw dropping planes actually flying around, smart people working together. I'm Amazed. Great presentation.

[rdsieben]

For large airliners to be fully electric, it cannot defeat the law of physics. You will never see an electric airliner with a range of 3, 000 miles and/or can fly over 500 MPH. Ground transportation is possible but not commercial air transportation.

[JanneWolterbeek]

I’ve almost always sat at the window, and marvel how I can jut sit there and fly.

[rjk]

Accidentally stumbled upon this video. Never knew such a quality content about electric fans existed. Very informative and excellent content. Well done. Subscribed already and looking forward to more videos.

[albertwolanski]

There is a sequence of events that need to take place;
Steam engine->steam turbine
Gasoline engine->jet engine
Electric motor->some sort of jet created by electricity, still

[antonnym]

I like the idea of electric airships, because they don't require much energy for lift, just propulsion.

[xcrimsinx]

Batteries are not efficient enough, nor are they light enough for the use in planes

[justaguy]

Fun fact: The tip design is more to do with aircraft standard sizes than to do with vortex management.

The only thing that passively reduces the vortexes (hence reducing lift induced drag) is a large aspect ratio, which is a ratio of a wing's length and width, i.e. the longer and skinnier the wing is the less drag it produces. Hence you see gliders have very long skinny wings.

So to solve the issue of lift induced drag you simply have to increase the wings length, however, there are limits to wingspans of aircraft, hanger size limitations, airport limitations and other factors, you can't make the aircraft to wide, or you'll go up into a higher aircraft class and pay more hanger fees and rents.

So manufacturers come up with these wing tips, they effective increase the length of the wing within increasing the total wing span too much, however it is less efficient than just having a longer wing. Hence new planes like the 777x have folding wing tips, theg fold up when in the airport and stored, but fold them down right before take off. To get the best of both worlds.

It's even stranger with private jets, more often than not customers ask for wing tips because they look good, even tho they might actually hurt fuel efficiency compared to simply a longer wing.

Ik the video glossed over it, I just wanted to give extra info.

[nathingriffith]

I don't fly at all, but this is a cool idea that others can use. I'm sticking to my truck personally.

[valf.]

Still a long way for commercial use. Two challenges 1. range 2. payload (ie battery weight impact.)