Electrochemical energy storage has very well known and finite physical limits. Lithium, one of the most active metals on the periodic chart is king when it comes to moving ions. There won’t be anything better anytime soon. There is a reason the hundreds of billions of dollars put into battery research yields no results. We understand the physics behind modern rechargeable batteries exceptionally well. Remember, common hydrocarbon fuels contain the same energy they always did. We were never able to make a gasoline that contained twice the energy, despite claims in the 1930’s that we were able to do so. What we did instead was to vastly improve engine efficiency. We don’t have that option with 93-95% efficient electric motors.
I await the day that these very same nay-sayers harrumph and hyper-parse their arguments to admit that they lacked the imagination to see that if electric rotorcraft can fill a market niche, they will be developed. After filling that niche, they will be further developed to compete in existing aircraft markets on price, convenience, noise, cleanliness, meeting the inevitable eco-restrictions, or whatever the future may bring.
I applaud Tier 1 Engineering for their accomplishment, but I saw a single-place electric helicopter at the Composite-FX factory in Florida last Spring and at their booth at Airventure. If that low-budget/high-talent outfit can make a kit-built electric Mosquito experimental helicopter kit out of essentially off-the-shelf components, it won’t be long before commercially viable electric rotorcraft are commonplace.
In my computer career, an apparently difficult problem was denoted a SMOP: Simple Matter of Programming. This is a SMOE.
Thank you Chris C.
I double majored in physiology and physics at Rutgers.
The periodic table is a cruel mistress. There are only so many choices that could be made for electrochemical potential difference. The is no miracle technology yet to be discovered, only fine tuning of what already exists.
The graph of battery ability vs. research expenditure has reached an asymptote.
It’s encouraging to see so many comments from the aviation community that are sober minded and balanced. So many are rushing headlong into the battery world and make rash comments about EV’s. Since the energy density of rechargeable Li-Ion batteries is 2.1 MJ/L vs. 36 MJ/L for gas it is clear at this time, battery powered vehicles cannot match the overall capability of ICE’s. Our Arrow can travel about 500 miles in any direction carrying about 500 lbs. of fuel. Batteries approximating that ability would weight far more than the aircraft itself. No one can argue that. Gas packs an energy wallop that overcomes less efficient IC motors. Even while powering efficient electric motors, batteries cannot match that and also have a host of other limitations that are well known, susceptible to temp extremes, parasitic drain et. al. The research is encouraging, but I see too many attempting to force electric vehicles before they are ready for prime time. Even for instruction … what is the time an electric 172 can remain in the air with reserves? One student and back to a charger for a few hours? Opinions are flying all over about causes of climate change. Animal husbandry? ICE’s? Even battery operations beginning with the mining of Lithium from the ABC countries encur a carbon penalty. A respected think tank concluded that given the overall factors in BEV production a 1200 kWH BEV and a compact ICE have about the same carbon footprint. So how much overall advantage would an electric training aircraft have over an ICE? I think none at the moment because they cannot match the endurance of an ICE. Someday, I think EV’s will be the primary players when energy sources match electric motors. But not yet.
The problem becomes not technology, but COSTS increases exponentially the closer you try to approach the asymptote. Just because battery power density can be improved does not mean they will be cheap/available enough for realistic general use.
Never is a long time.
Good points, but hobbyists don’t have the capital that VC’s do, and it’s a capital-intensive undertaking.
You never know what people will think up.
https://ndb.technology/
Another classic “Solution in search of a problem…”
EVs were going to be Jetson-like “intercity commuters”–but lacked the range, payload, and places to land. Then the prediction was for swarms of drones–either carrying passengers, or “something important.” Hasn’t happened…and has been pointed out a number of times–perhaps best by Chris C, William, and Jeremy H.
It has also been pointed out that the vehicle (the R-22) has existed for years–yet nobody has seen the need of the service.
If anyone REALLY BELIEVES this will be a “thing”–they should mortgage the farm and invest in the future–if you are right and the physicists are wrong, you can make a killing! That’s the benefit of the Capitalist system.
These reactions generated by the latest EV announcement always remind me of the old joke about new prisoner Dutch’s first day in the exercise yard. As the prisoners mill around, periodically one will yell out a seemingly random number, followed by laughter from others. On inquiry, it is explained to newbie Dutch that everyone has been “in” so long, all have memorized everyone else’s jokes, so to shorten things up, they have assigned each joke a number.
If we’re really serious about reducing our carbon footprint through bit transmission reduction, perhaps this could be applied to the limited and well-worn number of reactions to EV’s? “They laughed at Orville & Wilber” could be #4, “Physics preclude batteries ever matching petroleum’s energy density” #7, etc.
Oh, if by some strange quirk of fate you never heard the prisoner joke, Dutch memorizes some jokes and decides to join in, shouting “Thirteen”, one of the jokes he feels is funniest. No one laughs. Later, his cellmate explains “Well, Dutch, some people just can’t tell a joke.”
If we are going to talk jokes and fairy tales, perhaps “Chicken Little” would be appropriate for those who actually believe in miracles. Recall that Chicken Little ran about, making unfounded claims that “The sky is falling”–causing others to take action to prevent the falling sky from harming them. In reality, there was no evidence of the “falling sky”–life pretty much continued without worry–the predicted catastrophe never happened.
To continue the fairy tale analogy, perhaps “The boy that cried wolf” would also be appropriate–the boy reported wolf sightings so often that nobody believed him–until a real wolf actually did appear.
In more modern times, (dating back to about 1600), there have been countless claims that a “perpetual motion machine” was ALSO “just around the corner”–yet the concept has never worked (though some people actually believe in it.
The internal combustion engine has only been around for about 100 years–before that, there was steam power–or electric power. Electric power has never worked well for portable power (without connection to a generating source) due to the limitations of batteries–and there has been no “magic battery” produced to provide the mobility of internal combustion. But that doesn’t prevent the ever-hopeful from saying “it COULD happen”–though it hasn’t happened in over 100 years.
The constant hype of “just around the corner” reminds me of the old “carnival barker”–“step right up, Rube…I’ve got this magic elixer that cures what ails you…” Professor Harold Higgens (from “The Music Man”) also exploited those who WANTED TO BELIEVE in what he was sellling…
Two thumbs up for your comment. The first electric cars could barely make 40 miles, now GMC just released an electric truck with a 400 mile range. That said, while electric versions of traditional helicopters will no doubt enter the markets in the future, I think the more modern drone-based designs with high prop redundancy will be the EVTOLs of the future.
Not a relevant comparison.
For a commuter car like a Tesla immense weight is largely irrelevant.
Significant gains in battery energy density are impossible so a commuter car can largely ignore its weight as it adds more and more heavy batteries to get more range.
An aircraft is not afforded this luxury.
Also check on the forums. Teslas don’t often get the mileage advertised. Hot, cold, hills, heater use, AC use, dormant time, terrain, winds, etc. all adversely affect the range. A ‘400 mile’ Tesla is realistically a 300 mile commuter, with reserve.
The next day, he called out “97” and the other prisoners roared with laughter - they hadn’t heard that one yet.
You could have saved a lot of time by simply typing:
#17-f (fairy tail variant)
[And it was Professor Harold Hill who didn’t know the territory. Henry HiggIns tried to cure the cockney.]
>>designed to “deliver manufactured organs for transplant”<<
That helicopter is going to be landing on the hospital helipad to make the delivery. Then it is going to be sitting on that pad, blocking it from use by other emergencies, until either the battery pack is recharged or a replacement battery is obtained. Organ transplants don't happen every day, even in transplant hospitals, so the likelihood that spare batteries will be staged at every possible hospital helipad is rather slim. The logistics just don't seem to be all that practical.
The truth is you can’t schedule technical innovation. Your desire for some imagined technology doesn’t mean there’s some amount of finance that can bring it about. For chemical batteries to succeed in aircraft the energy/weight must increase by a factor of roughly 10. All the currency in the world spent on this and I’d bet it fails.
As if there is a booming untapped market for battery powered organ delivery.
As if a police car, ambulance, or conventional aircraft can no longer due this obscure task.
Why do you say there is a real market? This is total redundancy with all the other less complicated? EVTOLs that are being developed that do not have the mechanical complications of a traditional helicopter but can land on the same helipad etc. None of this makes any sense!
Forty-five years ago Bryan Allen flew a human powered airplane across the English Channel. So where are all the human powered airplanes these days. Demonstrating something is really nothing compared with perfecting it and they are at least a long way from that!