December 13, 2020
YOUR NEXT PLANE WILL BE A VOLT:
Electric airplanes are getting tantalizingly close to a commercial breakthrough (Michael J. Coren, 12/13/20, Quartz)
For $140,000, you can fly your own electric airplane. The Slovenian company Pipistrel sells the Alpha Electro, the first electric aircraft certified as airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018. It's a welterweight at just 811 pounds (368 kilograms), powered by a 21 kWh battery pack--about one-fifth the power of what you'd find in a Tesla Model S. For about 90 minutes, the pilot training plane will keep you and a companion aloft without burning a drop of fossil fuel.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 13, 2020 12:00 AM