An electric airplane the size of a small regional airliner took its first flight Wednesday, and the manufacturer says that in the taxi and 27 minutes it was airborne it used $5 worth of electricity. “With the first flight of X1, Heart Aerospace has demonstrated electric flight at the scale of a commercial airliner,” Heart Aerospace Founder and CEO Anders Forslund said in a statement. “Electric commercial aircraft have the potential to fundamentally reshape airline economics and, ultimately, lower the cost of air travel for passengers.” The L.A.-based company flew the aircraft over upstate New York. The plane that flew is a technology demonstrator and flew on battery power alone. The ultimate goal is to certify a 30-seat regional aircraft called the ES-30 with a hybrid electric system that the company says will cut operating costs by 40%.
In the short hop, which began and terminated at Heart’s flight test base at Plattsburgh, New York, the pilot flew the demonstrator to 1,100 feet to test the basic flight characteristics of the plane. The propulsion system put out more than a megawatt of power. “The mission was designed to demonstrate all-electric flight at a scale relevant to commercial airline operations,” the company said in a statement. Meanwhile the first type conforming aircraft is being built in L.A. and the company is seeking Part 25 certification. It’s predicting first flight in 2028 and entry to service in 2031.
That kind of savings has attracted the attention of United Airlines, Air Canada, and JSX who have all chipped in some development money, and the order book is said to be $9.4 billion. Air Canada Chief Financial Officer John Di Bert said its investment in in the ES-30 reflects Air Canada’s commitment to supporting innovative technologies that have the potential to transform aviation. United CFO Michael Leskinen said electric aircraft “have real potential to deliver a better travel experience for passengers while strengthening our business, and we look forward to Heart’s continued development of the ES-30 and its potential future role in United’s network.”
No information on speed, range or payload/ pax-count. Interesting, to say the least. 9.4BN indicates the willingness of airlines to save a buck or two.
Much of that information is at https://www.heartaerospace.com/es-30
How do you power a large aircraft for a 30 minute flight on $5 of electricity? There must have been some jet A burned that they forget to include in their release eh?
With no N Number visible on all the pics on their web page I have to call BS on this.
They claim putting out 1 MegaWat of power for a 27 minute flight. That is approximately 0.5 MegaWattHours. 0.5 MegaWattHours in New York costs approximately $115…
That’s probably just the peak power used at takeoff.
Phil, you are right. It probably climbed to 1100′ in less than a minute at that high power and then cruised at very low power for 26 minutes.
I am afraid that numbers like $5 and MegaWatts being used together sound far fetched and will discredit what is very good technology. Electric power is a great fit for short haul aircraft. You can get large amounts of power to climb for a small time and then cruise very efficiently from point to point with distance limited by battery capacity to short hauls.
The number that would be very useful is the comsumption per hour for cruise performance versus load being carried. Cost maintenance should be much lower than for conventional aircraft and it would be interesting to know those figures for comparison too.
I need more documentation on the $5 claim…