Your editor has asked for years if batteries in electrically-powered aircraft could be augmented by supercapacitors, devices able to unleash significant amounts of power quickly. The usual answer is that the added weight of supercaps that could add power on demand would be about that of added batteries to equal the performance. We wrote about the use of super capacitors in KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) used in Formula racers and even at LeMans. At around the same time, Mazda tucked supercaps under the front wheel well on some models to capture waste energy from braking. That energy could then power electric systems in the car and even recharge the main battery. In an explanation and comparison of lithium batteries and supercaps, Matt Ferrell gives a reasonable overview of the two and how they will probably evolve in the future. As he notes, Tesla recently purchased Maxwell technologies, possibly to fill what Maxwell describes as the “energy gap for fast-response, …
