“the numbers just don’t add up.”
How does going electric change the economic equation?
Our electric motor is about 20 times less expensive than a similarly-size turboprop, and about a 100 times less expensive than the cheapest turbofan. More importantly, maintenance costs are more than 100 times lower. These lower operating costs will make 19-seater electric aircraft competitive to 70-seater turboprop aircraft.
Is the powertrain type certified yet? Just wait until the lawyers get around to it.
Our electric motor?
You work for the company?
It’s a hybrid.
How do the numbers not add up?
It is not the maintenance cost. It’s the weight. Jet Fuel or Gasoline has roughly one hundred times as much energy per pound as a battery. When you have to lift all that weight in an airplane, the numbers do not add up.
A 180 pound man weighs as much as 30 gallons of fuel. How far can you fly a 180 pound man with thirty gallons of fuel? Quite far, if you are clever about it. From New York to Australia, in the extreme case.
But how far can you fly that man with a third of a gallon of fuel? Not very far at all. To maintain a 45 minute reserve on board, almost any aircraft you can imagine that is capable of getting off the ground would have to land as soon as it is airborne.
Cost estimates for an electric motor for a plane for which there is not even one prototype, are wishful thinking at best.