Comment by merek
7 hours ago
Maybe I missed it but they didn't delve much into the TAM.
"Half of all flights in the world are under 2 hours." Then they give examples of Fjord-town hopping in Norway, or Island hopping in Hawaii, which seem very niche.
Will they be able to compete in any of the busiest routes? Could it take me Melbourne-Sydney in 1 - 2 hours for < $100? I'd sacrifice some time and $ for an eco-friendly option, but obviously there's a limit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_flig...
I didn't get that far in the video but from where I live (NYC) two hours gets you to a lot of very common travel destinations:
Boston, Massachusetts (1h) Washington, D.C. (1h) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (45m) Baltimore, Maryland (1h) Toronto, Ontario (1h 45m) Montreal, Quebec (1h 30m) Cleveland, Ohio (1h 45m) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1h 15m) Buffalo, New York (1h 10m) Providence, Rhode Island (45m) Portland, Maine (1h 10m) Bermuda (1h 50m) Nantucket, Massachusetts (1h 15m) Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts (1h 25m) Ottawa, Ontario (1h 30m) Quebec City, Quebec (1h 45m) Rochester, New York (1h 5m) Syracuse, New York (1h) Manchester, New Hampshire (1h) Bangor, Maine (1h 25m) Burlington, Vermont (1h 10m) Richmond, Virginia (1h 10m) Norfolk, Virginia (1h 15m) Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina (1h 25m) Charlotte, North Carolina (1h 45m) Greensboro, North Carolina (1h 30m) Charleston, South Carolina (2h) Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (1h 45m) Savannah, Georgia (2h)
If it gets a little better than current 2 hour flight time then Detroit Chicago and Atlanta are in range - very significant.
Batteries are rapidly improving (on many metrics, but the relevant one here is increasing in energy density).
The range is apparently 125 miles electric, and 500 miles as a hybrid. That's not enough for Melbourne Sydney. Give it a couple doubling-times though (5 years total?) and it will be.
Meanwhile aircraft take forever to develop and there should be enough of a market in shorter hall flights to occupy a scaling company in the meantime anyways.
Canberra - Sydney is one of the busiest routes in Australia with Dash 8 and ATR turboprops on high rotation every day. I could see a small electric aircraft working pretty well there, modulo charging times.
> modulo charging times.
There's already an Australian electric trucking company trailing plug n'replace heavy battery packs (with a forklift).
That allows for fast turnover times while used batteries recharge at terminals.
Batteries aren't rapidly improving. Every single battery that has proposed higher energy density also has downsides in max discharge current. We may get at best like 10% improvement over what it is today.
That's max discharge current per cell though. You are going to have a lot of cells in a plane like this.
It’s taken thirty years for lithium batteries to double in energy density, and the rate of increase has tapered off recently.
Electric planes can in theory get longer flights, provided they change the flight profile - you spend a lot of energy going up to higher altitude, and the essentially glide down.
The energy used to achieve altitude is then saved in the descent stage. So that’s not an issue for aircraft, regardless of how they’re powered. This is why every flight you’ve ever been on climbs to cruise altitude as fast as possible.
High altitude where the air is less dense is better for speed due to less drag. This is also power source agnostic.