December 16, 2019 | Lower Operating Costs Drive Push for Electric Planes

Full-cost accounting of pollution and emissions are set to dramatically escalate the cost of air travel and pressure profits in the low-margin sector.  Now, plane manufacturers and operators are seeing every reason to go electric.  See Rolls-Royce thinks it can make a plane Greta Thunberg would fly in:

Rolls-Royce has partnerships with Airbus and other players to work on both hybrids and fully electric planes. Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies, is selling a more fuel-efficient engine technology now, while its parent company works on longer-range projects, spokesman John Thomas said.

Boeing, the biggest Airbus rival in the airplane field, is testing a line of small electric planes designed to do some of the jobs taxicabs do now. And General Electric’s airline-engine unit signed a deal in June with XTI Aircraft Company to use GE’s Catalyst engine as the core of a new hybrid-electric propulsion system for a planned XTI business aircraft.

Israel-based aviation start-up Eviation is working with partners including Siemens and Honeywell on a plane it calls Alice, an all-electric commuter aircraft for regional transport. Here is a direct video link.

Danielle Park December 16th, 2019

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