Electric aircraft developer Eviation has laid off most of its staff and "paused" work on its Alice prototype. The company has confirmed an initial report by the Air Current that it had all but ceased operations at Arlington Airport in Washington State. In a statement the company said it was “identifying the right long-term partnerships to help us make electric commercial regional flight a reality.”
Unfortunately Alice is stuck in Wonderland, is hoping for a Prince Charming to waltz on by and kiss the frog hoping for some magical transformation. It ain’t going to happen. Everyone knows the main ingredient is a sprinkling of pixy dust. Without it all is lost. Even Kevin knows this. I think.
On a more serious note, normally I’m optimistic (e.g., gullible) about efforts like this, but not in the Eviation case. Their initial artist conception had electric motors in the wingtips with the propellers scant inches from the ground; a sure disaster when trying to land in a crosswind. Obviously, no one with a pilot certificate or aviation design experience had been involved in coming up with the concept.
Yet another pretty picture with buzz word captions but no legitimate technology. The current high performance batteries are at (i.e Tesla) 244–296 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). Until we see a company brag about 400-450 Wh/kg batteries, we are not going to see anything but pretty proof of concepts.
So far, all these companies can do is get to the test flight stage with 20min flight time at max T/O weight. Then the company is unable to show a path forward for passengers and at least a 500mi range. The short range sweet spot is 100-250mi trips, where commuters are faster than ground or airline transportation. There seems to be no end to foolish investors.
And yet another “I told you so” concerning electric-powered aircraft. Pity are the billions of taxpayer and naive investor dollars wasted on all these efforts at new aircraft for which no real market exists.
Did I read that right … 600 orders for 5B (8.3M ea), for a plane that would carry 9 people 300 mi (like NY to Pittsburgh or L.A. to San Jose)? Seems that the ROI on that would consist of a virtue signalling publicity stunt.
Is 290 the max, get nervous range before the motors turn off? And then how long for a full recharge at turn around. I know all of this has considered by everyone involved. But just doesn’t look useful, especially for 9 persons. But, not my money.
Last time I ran the numbers I came up with ~1200wg/kg to get competitive on short routes. I was comparing an electric caravan to normal caravan for that though.
That’s fair, it depends on what a person considers minimum
I was just looking at getting passengers to a 200mi destination and back - certainly not close to normal range. This is the range it takes a passenger about 6hrs to either drive or take an airline - commuters can sometimes cut that time by 25-30%. In the foreseeable future, no electric plane will be competitive for medium and long range.
