60 Minutes and The Today Show have recently featured sky taxis and future electric airliners on their broadcasts. This is big news in that such transport is getting recognition in popular media, and even somewhat of a fair hearing. Even though references to the Jetsons are common in such reports, both these excursions seemed to be less wide-eyed, biased, and skeptical than most. Lift Hexa Although LIFT’s Hexa is featured prominently in publicity for the show, Wisk’s CEO is featured in this promotional piece. “We’re excited to share that we’ll be on this weekend’s episode of @60Minutes on @cbstv! Be sure to tune in as our CEO, Gary Gysin, sits down with @AndersonCooper to talk about the future of #mobility!” LIFT had a say in promoting the show. “Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour is one of the worst things about the morning commute. But what if people could fly over the gridlock? Anderson Cooper takes a ride in …
A Huge Battery with an Airplane Painted On It
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 …