The Electric Plane: Inspired By Tesla. Built By Airbus
Is Tesla dominating electric transportation? Well, if at all, then maybe in cars.
Whilst Tesla's founder Elon Musk still ponders about his latest vision of designing an electric supersonic airplane, with the ability to take off and land vertically, members of the Tesla Motors Club are already broadly involved in discussing the most recent and successful maiden flight of Airbus Group's new green plane.
As a matter of fact, some days ago Airbus unveiled its all-electric E-Fan 2.0 protoype electric aircraft, which has two motors with ducted fans powered by a lithium-ion polymer battery. The two-seater, which has been tested since the beginning of March near Bordeaux, is built of carbon fiber and can fly for about half an hour at 110 miles (177 kilometers). It has a wingspan of 31.2 feet (9.5 meters) and weighs 1,212 pounds (550 kilograms).
It could be the aircraft maker's next step in trying to enter (via hybrid electric powered engines) the market for regional jets (70-90 seats). According to Airbus, this might take anything between 15 to 20 years. Such a hybrid regional airliner could slash fuel consumption by 70-80% based on current technology and it could significantly cut noise levels. Consequently Airbus and its partners are aiming to perform research and development to construct a series version of the E-Fan and propose an industrial plan for a production facility close to Bordeaux Airport.
Certainly there is a place for electric and hybrid concepts in civil aerospace. However, the challenge will be to manage the high electrical loads on-board and to have enough power storage to fuel large jets. In addition batteries need to be stable and highly resistant in any context and given situation, something Boeing struggled a lot with on its 787 Dreamliner. Lately, it's also been rather quiet about Boeing's once very popular SUGAR Volt concept: A hybrid aircraft which would use two hybrid turbofans that burn conventional jet fuel when taking off, then use electric motors to power the engines while flying.
Indeed, currently it appears that the rather clumsy and bureaucratic Airbus group is at the technological forefront of electric airplanes—not Boeing or Tesla.
By the way, if you were to consider getting your own E-Fan 2.0, you might be interested to know that it'll be priced in-line with similar-sized planes at around $300,000.
What do you think about it? Will electric planes shape the future of transportation? Will Airbus lead the market? What about Boeing, Tesla, and other players?
Join our discussion by leaving a comment below! Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Andreas von der Heydt
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Andreas von der Heydt is the Country Manager of Amazon BuyVIP in Germany. Before that he hold senior management positions at L'Oréal. He′s a leadership expert, innovator, executive coach and NLP master. He also founded Consumer Goods Club. Andreas worked and lived in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
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Associé @ DNG - the Consumer Consulting Firm |?Conseil en Stratégie & Opérations
10 年Facts are this project started before the Tesla...sso maybe you should turn your title the other way around... Unless it's just for the buzz... And also I wish any and all companies in their domain to be as clumsy and bureaucratic as Airbus as it seems to work quite well for tthem being the world leader in their field....
Vice President of Sales
10 年Charge the battery as you go. In my LinkedIn Profile Summary I wrote a short article "Time-Out Tesla" discussing several of my ideas and woes. One thing I mentioned was to use a dual battery system, recharging one battery while burning the other. I suggested using a Tesla Turbine and the wind created while driving to recharge the battery. Of course I was talking about automobiles but why not use the same concept in Electric Planes? This whole Tesla movement is so cool just like the pilot Elon Musk.
Chairman/CEO Lighthouse Utility Solutions, Inc., Zintro "Expert"
10 年Mark- The KEY WORD is "outside". This system produces electric power- MORE than it takes to produce the thermal energy needed to drive the system. This is a TOTALLY different engine design than anyone has ever seen before for a steam engine so it operates in areas where no-one has ever imagined before. Because it makes enough electricity to create the high pressure steam needed to drive the engine, it needs NO OUTSIDE ENERGY to make it work. I would NEVER say that it needs NO energy to work- just no outside energy.
Quality Assurance Inspection
10 年Although there will always be stumbles and set backs in innovation, it is incredibly vital to learn from those setbacks and turn them into success. Something Tesla has done very well. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." I am so glad that Elon Musk and his team is dreaming, and dreaming big! While the CEO's of Ford and GM are tinkering with a century old technology with little hope of the exponential improvement that electric transport is experiencing, Elon and the other big dreamers like him (Brad Mattson comes to mind) are changing the world. How many stumbles have automobiles taken? They got the majority of their stumbles out of the way 40 years ago. Now they just keep repackaging what is basically the same thing. The learning curve in the internal combustion engine has slowed down to a snail's pace. They put hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D departments for fractions of percentages of efficiency gains. Put a few hundred million dollars into electric transportation R&D and you will see 10x the gains in power and efficiency. The internal combustion engine is not going away anytime soon, but the "doom and gloom" attitude towards electricity is not very productive. Especially coming from an author who works for a company that changed the world through innovation, Amazon.
Consumer Services Professional
10 年Is Tesla ever get compensated for his invention? Like those classical composers ever get compensated appropriately? Just wondering...