Boeing-Backed Startup Lands JetSuite for Electric Plane's Debut

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/boeing-backed-startup-targets-2022-debut-for-electric-plane

by rbanffy • 8 years ago

54 45 8 years ago

The next century of personal transportation will be autonomous electric cars for short distances, autonomous regional rail for medium within-density transport (e.g.. interborough or within-the-Bay-Area distances), autonomous electric aircraft for cross-density transport(e.g. New York to the Hamptons or Cupertino to Napa) and cheap windowless airplanes for long distance. The unique aspect of this vision is the reduced role for public transit outside intracity subway and regional commuter rail. Autonomous cars and planes seem to increase road efficiency in a manner that competes effectively with rail for density-crossing transport.

sandworm1012• 8 years ago

So all the revolutions are schedualed to happen at once. Electric vehicles, planes. Autonomous vehicles. Abandonment of private vehicles. All at once? I think the commitee is overreaching a little. Did i miss a meeting?

r00fus• 8 years ago

I r ally don't get how you're getting the implication that it all lands at once.

These are a basket of solutions for which each country/state will choose some or all but all of which could play a part.

alex_duf2• 8 years ago

We had Internet, Mobile phones and GPS becoming widely adopted in the same decade, I don't see why that wouldn't be possible.

That being said I don't think they will land and be adopted widely at the same time. I would see electric cars first, then more renewable energy, then self driving cars, then electric planes, all across two decades or so.

0x006A• 8 years ago

whats great about windowless airplanes?

JumpCrisscross4• 8 years ago

whats great about windowless airplanes?

Blended-wing bodies [1] are very efficient. So you get a bigger jet that's cheaper to fly. Downside: some seats will be on the inside. Moreover, windows are a huge stress point on air frames. A windowless craft is cheaper to maintain.

If there's one preference travelers show, it's that for cheaper tickets. A windowless blended-wing aircraft delivers on that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing_body

rbanffy7• 8 years ago

Nothing

ant6n3• 8 years ago

And this vision is terrible for energy efficiency and space efficiency. Look at developing countries, there's often a large dependence on taxis and three-wheelers, due to the low labor costs the economics are similar to self driving cars in industrialized countries (some scholars predict the cost of cleaning of shared autonomous cars will be substantial, which may make it similar to the drivers cost in developing countries). Meanwhile, the capacity increases are likely oversold, as you can see in developing countries that have poor transit: total grid lock.

Your "Futurama" vision of car-centric cities is old, tired, and not working, throwing the words 'electric' and 'autonomuous' in there isn't gonna chance much.

JumpCrisscross4• 8 years ago

the capacity increases are likely oversold

The last study I saw on the topic estimated most urban travel could be accomplished with 11% of the existing fleet if cars drove constantly. So not only do you return all the parking space to the economy, but you also increase roads' capacity by something around tenfold. Throwing "autonomous" in changes the capacity tradeoffs and throwing "electric" in makes more cars more pleasant, from both an emissions as well as noise perspective.

schwarrrtz• 8 years ago

Have you heard of bicycles?

aurailious2• 8 years ago

I think there are some that have already begun to attach electric motors to, so yes, we can even replace those as well.

Mvandenbergh• 8 years ago

Interesting. Obviously this is challenging from a power and energy density point of view but I suspect the play is likely to be in being able to land planes at airports very close in to major cities where noise and pollution constraints dominate. If you have a plane that you're allowed to land 300 times a year at midnight at a field where you'd only be allowed to land at 50 times a year before 10pm with a conventionally powered plane you might be able to stake out a commercially viable niche.

yardie3• 8 years ago

The amount of air you need to move to create the thrust is not silent at all. Whether it is all electric or gas turbine it's going to be noisy.

alex_duf2• 8 years ago

So far, noise level seems to be a repeating argument in favour of electric planes, so I suspect it's still much less noisy

aurailious2• 8 years ago

Its like how about somewhere around 30 mph cars make more noise from going through the air than their engines.

ordinaryradical• 8 years ago

Yes, however a large chunk of that is created by the flaps. If you have shape memory flaps, you can reduce noise by up to 40% on takeoff and landing. I know one company has already proven this technology on some Gulfstreams for qualification.

dsfyu404ed• 8 years ago

I suspect the play is likely to be in being able to land planes at airports very close in to major cities where noise and pollution constraints dominate.

Midnight arrival at the destination isn't the problem. It's 6am departure from whoever your vacation house that's the pain point for people who are rich enough to be chartering jets and helicopters.

With an electric jet you can depart from Long Island or Cape Cod in time to arrive at your office on Wall Street for that Monday morning video conference with your business partners in Zurich and do so without annoying your neighbors.

With a conventional jet/turboprop/helicopter you're limited to about once or twice a month before your neighbors get annoyed with the early morning noise and sick the local bylaw Stasi on you. (This is the means by which people in these sorts of communities feud over minor inconveniences. If your constantly annoying people by chartering a jet at 5am they'll complain about the unsightliness of the sailboat under a carport in your driveway or something.)

An electric jet will be by no means quiet (gotta create thrust somehow) but an electric jet can be substantially quieter than a petroleum fueled jet (and noise reduction appears to be a quality they're specifically designing for). Being able to have the travel time of a jet but no more noise than a turboprop would probably a big enough selling point for a few charter companies to add a few to the fleet.

I used to work at one of these sorts of airports, early morning departures is the biggest pain point a quieter jet solves for the kind of people chartering jets (you can't just roar out of there at 5am every Monday without pissing people off).

patmcguire• 8 years ago

I believe the big difference is that electric engines are wildly more reliable than piston engines. That allows less maintenance and shorter turnaround times, so it spends more time in the air than turboprops can.

rbanffy7• 8 years ago

Turboprops don't use piston engines.

corradio• 8 years ago

Given the title I thought they literally "landed" an electric plane, which would be quite nice for a startup. Turns out I was baited into clicking.

Boeing Co.-backed startup Zunum Aero plans to deliver its first hybrid-electric plane in 2022 to JetSuite Inc

rtkwe2• 8 years ago

It seems that electric plane will have one big pain point in adoption for larger passenger craft: the time to refuel/recharge the batteries. Gate dwell time is one of the major costs for an airline both in terms of lost revenue and in fees charged by the airport itself.

adenadel• 8 years ago

Possibly stupid question: Would battery swaps be a reasonable solution to this?

rbanffy7• 8 years ago

These planes are hybrids - they use a turbine to charge batteries and power the EDF engines. I suppose the batteries are used for take off and cruise flight is mostly powered by the turbine (that doesn't have to be powerful enough for takeoff). Landing, again, can be purely electric.

rtkwe2• 8 years ago

It could, but it will complicate the design a bit since you have to have very easy and quick access to the battery which means a new piece of machinery on the ground to swap the battery and exterior access hatches.

gandreani3• 8 years ago

One application for super capacitors that I always think about is electric planes. These small planes represent a drop in the total fuel consumption of air travel. The majority of it is consumed by commercial passenger airlines and shipping.

The second most important metric batteries have to meet is charging time. The lower the time the plane spends on the ground, the better return on investment. Having to wait for a plane to charge is not ideal for airlines. A super capacitor power bank can be charged much faster than a lithium ion battery bank.

The third is power delivery. I haven't calculated the power required to take off, but given the usual 30s "sprint" (not sure what the technical term is here) to take off the rest can be calculated from that. I haven't calculated it yet, but lithium battery packs usually are restricted to Capacity == Power i.e. 1Wh == 1W. With super capacitors that ratio is sometimes 100x that

The downside to super capacitors is even the best ones created so far (in research not commercial) are the graphene ones that loose their power in 12h.

This isn't a deal breaker but it does probably limit a capacitor powered electric plane to 6hour rides max

Hope someone else finds this rambling interesting :)

nine_k3• 8 years ago

I can imagine a hybrid where a super capacitor is used as a booster at takeoff, when power consumption is 5-10 times higher than in horizontal flight. It does not need to keep the charge for a long time, and can be charged right before the flight. It will eliminate many thermal issues with lithium cells at high currents.

gandreani3• 8 years ago

That would be a good solution for the power delivery problem but not the charging problem

mrfusion2• 8 years ago

Can’t batteries be charged in parralel pretty fast though? I think that’s what tesla is doing with semi charging.

gandreani3• 8 years ago

Yes but the limit that I talked about takes into consideration parallel charging. The limit is for each individual cell, so even if each individual cell is charged in parallel it would still take an hour at least to charge

You could charge the lithium batteries faster but that negatively impacts the lifetime of the battery

exabrial• 8 years ago

Time on the ground = time not being spent on hauling paying passengers.

This is the key problem with battery-powered electric vehicles and why fuel cells make so much more sense that battery packs. Fuel cells are a much "harder" technology to get correct and the tech is very difficult to get correct.

rbanffy7• 8 years ago

This is why this plane uses a turbine to power the two EDF engines, supplemented by the batteries it charges during cruise flight.

Boeing-Backed Startup Lands JetSuite for Electric Plane's Debut

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