Rolls-Royce looks to smash speed record with the world’s fastest electric airplane

A partnership led by Rolls-Royce is building an all-electric aircraft that may smash into the record books with a top speed of over 300 mph (480 km/h) – beating the previous record of 210 mph (338 km/h) set in 2017 by Siemens. Scheduled to fly in 2020, the zero-emission electric speedster is being developed as part of the Accelerating the Electrification of Flight (ACCEL) and is billed as a leader of the “third wave” of aviation.

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Previous record holder

Record-setting electric plane tows glider up into the sky in seconds

Siemens has just announced that an electric aerobatic plane powered by its latest motor has nabbed two world speed records. The Extra 330LE aircraft is now the fastest e-plane under 1,000 kg, and also – after a few mods – the quickest above 1,000 kg, too. The electric test plane also became the first in the world to tow a glider up into the skies.

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Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

dv said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

London to Paris, apparently.
Mid air refuelling could be a problem for battery powere aircraft.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

London to Paris, apparently.
Mid air refuelling could be a problem for battery powere aircraft.

Converted 737s trailing long extension cords?

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

London to Paris, apparently.
Mid air refuelling could be a problem for battery powere aircraft.

Recharged batteries could be delivered via nose cone swap

Economy class passengers on exercise bikes hooked up to generators.

dv said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

Going on car battery performance between 100 – 400 km

The aviation industry is looking at between 800 – 1600 km as the standard range.

The current record holder is the Extra 330 LE is a two-seat aerobatic and completely silent aircraft fitted with a Siemens-electric engine,

Tau.Neutrino said:

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the range is?

London to Paris, apparently.
Mid air refuelling could be a problem for battery powere aircraft.

Recharged batteries could be delivered via nose cone swap

That could be done in a a similar way to mid air refueling via a two step process,

A line is attached to the cone, its then hauled in, then another line delivers the next cone.

> the zero-emission electric speedster …

I call BS. There are emissions galore in battery production.

> 480 km/h …

Not too shabby.

> completely silent aircraft

I call BS on that too. Quite apart from the engine whine, the main noise comes from the prop.

mollwollfumble said:

> the zero-emission electric speedster …

Sure, but a modern battery pack will last a good 250,000 km or maybe more. Then the majority of it can be recycled and a new battery made from it and with fewer emissions.

Compare that to a car and/or truck, where for that 250,000 Km, every second it runs, it creates emissions. Add onto those emissions the additional emissions of extracting the oil, refining it, then transporting it to the service station, etc. For sure the EV, if charged by a coal-powered station, will also have additional emissions associated but even though they will be far less than an ICE vehicle.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

> the zero-emission electric speedster …

Sure, but a modern battery pack will last a good 250,000 km or maybe more. Then the majority of it can be recycled and a new battery made from it and with fewer emissions.

Compare that to a car and/or truck, where for that 250,000 Km, every second it runs, it creates emissions. Add onto those emissions the additional emissions of extracting the oil, refining it, then transporting it to the service station, etc. For sure the EV, if charged by a coal-powered station, will also have additional emissions associated but even though they will be far less than an ICE vehicle.

The refining of fuel oil is almost all just fractionation, involving physical separation not chemical changes. And it requires remarkably little fuel for a long distance of travel.

For batteries, we need chemical operations to make them, which is much more energy intensive than physical fractionation. As for re-usability, the more cycles you want to get out of a battery the heavier it has to be, and aeroplanes don’t want heavy batteries.

mollwollfumble said:

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

> the zero-emission electric speedster …

Sure, but a modern battery pack will last a good 250,000 km or maybe more. Then the majority of it can be recycled and a new battery made from it and with fewer emissions.

Compare that to a car and/or truck, where for that 250,000 Km, every second it runs, it creates emissions. Add onto those emissions the additional emissions of extracting the oil, refining it, then transporting it to the service station, etc. For sure the EV, if charged by a coal-powered station, will also have additional emissions associated but even though they will be far less than an ICE vehicle.

The refining of fuel oil is almost all just fractionation, involving physical separation not chemical changes. And it requires remarkably little fuel for a long distance of travel.

For batteries, we need chemical operations to make them, which is much more energy intensive than physical fractionation. As for re-usability, the more cycles you want to get out of a battery the heavier it has to be, and aeroplanes don’t want heavy batteries.

Sure, but the electrical cost in running a refinery is very substantial, especially if you include the entire process of extracting the oil through to pumping it into your car.

https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html

I do agree that making batteries is also energy expensive, but it’s only done once every few hundred thousand kilometres and has zero emissions between that. Additionally lithium batteries aren’t going to remain the primary battery chemistry for more than another decade or so. There’s a number of alternative types being worked on right now.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

Spiny Norman said:

Sure, but a modern battery pack will last a good 250,000 km or maybe more. Then the majority of it can be recycled and a new battery made from it and with fewer emissions.

Compare that to a car and/or truck, where for that 250,000 Km, every second it runs, it creates emissions. Add onto those emissions the additional emissions of extracting the oil, refining it, then transporting it to the service station, etc. For sure the EV, if charged by a coal-powered station, will also have additional emissions associated but even though they will be far less than an ICE vehicle.

The refining of fuel oil is almost all just fractionation, involving physical separation not chemical changes. And it requires remarkably little fuel for a long distance of travel.

For batteries, we need chemical operations to make them, which is much more energy intensive than physical fractionation. As for re-usability, the more cycles you want to get out of a battery the heavier it has to be, and aeroplanes don’t want heavy batteries.

Sure, but the electrical cost in running a refinery is very substantial, especially if you include the entire process of extracting the oil through to pumping it into your car.

https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html

I do agree that making batteries is also energy expensive, but it’s only done once every few hundred thousand kilometres and has zero emissions between that. Additionally lithium batteries aren’t going to remain the primary battery chemistry for more than another decade or so. There’s a number of alternative types being worked on right now.

It would be interesting to calculate the total fuel costs for each fuel type over the lifetime of the airplane and compare them.

Taking into account manufacturing energy costs of the plane and the manufacture and delivery of its fuel/ energy type.

With fuel, it has to be taken out of the ground, processed then transported to the airport each time.

With batteries they have to manufactured, transported to the airport only once every 5-10 years ( lifetime of battery ), then they can be recharged using renewable solar energy / wind etc
but that rechargeable energy still has some costs that come with it.