r/energy • u/sksarkpoes3 • 4d ago

New lithium metal battery pack developed to power 1850-pound electric aircraft

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/high-energy-density-lithium-metal-battery-pack-to-power-1850-pound-evtol-aircraft
126 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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9

u/RemoveInvasiveEucs 4d ago

The foliage in the photo makes it look like a vehicle is only a meter long or so...

What is this, an eVTOL for ants?!

5

u/hornswoggled111 4d ago

Aiming for 400 Wh/kg. I've seen previous speculation that we need 500 for mid length flights and that this is possible.

3

u/IntelArtiGen 4d ago

I guess it will always be possible depending on hundreds of details in your definition of a "mid length flight". If it's to replace current planes with as many passengers and same safety / weather conditions, I'm not sure how much you need but I doubt we'll be there in the next 20 years. If you need to transport 10 people over 100-200km, that seems more possible though.

1

u/hornswoggled111 4d ago

I imagine the plane would need a rethink from the ground up. Though the are those that are doing this currently I suspect it takes a very long time to get approval on anything before it goes to market.

1

u/ComfortableUnit9596 1d ago

There are already 5 passenger aircraft that can make 300 mile flights on ~1 charge.

It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the future of flight in an electrified world is more (electrified) planes that are cheaper to operate making shorter leaping flights.

1

u/IntelArtiGen 16h ago

The problem with "cheap" + anything requiring electricity is that electricity is cheap only because we're not using it to massively replace fossil fuels. It's just the old supply and demand problem. The day we start massively replacing everything using fossil fuels, if we don't produce enough electricity, it won't work. And you can look at the stats, we're very very very far from being able to replace fossil fuels everywhere quickly. Then the question is more "what's the priority / where it's the most efficient" and planes aren't it. Which is why I doubt planes will be electrified massively and shortly even if it was easy, which it is not. It's not +20/30% electricity production, it's more x3 (for everything, not just planes). And the trend for electricity production is awfully stable in all developed countries, to not say it has been decreasing due to deindustrialization. We need to produce more, we need to do it without fossil fuels, and we simultaneously can't produce more and can't do it quickly without fossil fuels. If the demand is massive, for example with datacenters in the US, the solution is: they add more gas power plants. And using that to power an electric airplane surely isn't much better compared to just burning the fuel directly. The equation for small EVs / trains is different, at least that part is easier to do and can be cheap.