What’s Eviation’s Alice Up To Lately?

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Eviation puts its intentions front and center on its web site.  “OUR VISION: To launch a new era of more sustainable, scalable, and affordable transportation.” They follow this up with, “OUR MISSION: To build beautiful electric airplanes using advanced technology and impeccable design, imagined and built by a committed and expert workforce.” And Alice did fly a beautiful test flight on September 27, 2022 – and since then it’s not flown again.  According to FlightGlobal.com, Alice’s makers felt the single flight was enough to have “generated terabytes of data.” Gregory Davis, then the company’s CEO stated, “What we have been doing is focusing on what we need to get the airplane to the next stage. We don’t need to fly the aircraft again and again [at this point] – let’s focus on advancing the design.” With certification perhaps four years away, then CEO Davis seemed to indicate everything was open to change, including the MagniX motors that had powered the only …

Phinergy Aluminum/Air Batteries from India

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Phinergy, an aluminum/air battery maker from Israel, is now partnering with Indian Oil Corporation.  Phinergy’s technology just received an award from the World Economic Forum as one of the 100 most promising Technology Pioneers for 2021.  Phinergy was chosen for, “Its innovative energy solutions which turn metals, such as aluminum and zinc, into a clean, sustainable and cost-effective means of storing, transporting and generating energy.” Why would Indian Oil Corp. (biggest oil outfit in the country) be attracted to Phinergy and its aluminum/air batteries?  Company R&D Director S.S.V. Ramakumar explains, “Lithium is scarce in the country and we started scouting for an element which is abundantly available as a natural resource.”  Unspoken, the idea that India has one of the most polluted airsheds in the world, means increasing pressure on Big Oil to redeem itself.  Reuters reports, “India was home to 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities, according to IQAir’s 2020 World Air Quality Report, which gathered data …

A Huge Battery with an Airplane Painted On It

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation, Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Eviation, an Israeli company developing Alice, a high-speed, intermediate-distance commuter airplane, brought its prototype to the Paris Air Show this week.  Eviation co-founder and CEO Omer Bar-Yohay gave journalists a 27-minute overview of the aircraft, the philosophy behind it, and projections on its immediate future. “It’s basically a huge battery with some plane painted on it,” he told reporters. The 6,350 kilogram (13,970 pound) airplane carries 900 kilowatt-hours of batteries, equivalent to the cells in nine Tesla S P100D automobiles or one Tesla semi-truck.  Even that, according to rough figuring by yours truly and polished calculations by a smarter reader, seems to provide for only half the necessary energy to provide the range Eviation claims.  Will flight tests prove us misguided? Fuel Burn vs. kWh Carrying capacity and performance are similar to the Beechcraft King Air.  The King Air burns 100 gallons per hour at a fuel cost around $550.  The Alice consumes about 400 kilowatt hours at a cost …