Last week, Elon Musk had a candid conversation with VC George Zachary at the Charles River Ventures CEO Summit. One of the most interesting things Musk talked about was his desire to see electric airplanes in the future—and perhaps even one day help develop these green, energy efficient planes himself.
It makes sense—Musk has an interest in aeronautics (he founded Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX, in 2002, which develops and manufactures space launch vehicles), energy efficiency and sustainability. Electric planes combine these three in a nice package. Musk also mentioned his electric plane idea in an interview at the Churchill Club earlier this year (see video below), where he says he’s very interested in developing an “electric super sonic plane” one day. The nascent technology for an electronic airplane is still relatively unknown but perhaps Musk will change that in the not too distant future.
The videos are below with a transcript of the dialogue between Zachary and Musk:
Zachary: What will you do next-will you stay inside the three areas
Musk: I don’t think I’ll go outside of the three areas. There’s a [inaudible] on the sustainable energy front. I have an idea for an electric plane and really one that you can go suspersonic in. And then it would be interesting to take a look at fusion. That’s a really tough problem.
Zachary: So that should keep you busy for awhile.
Arrington: I want hear more about the electric plane that you brought up really early on in the talk and how realistic that is from a technology standpoint and from a new startup standpoint possibly. Is it possibe technically to do that in an interesting way. Seems like a lot of batteries.
Musk: It’s a lot of batteries.Technically an electric plane gets more feasible as battery energy improves. It’s definitely feasible right now. Its just a questions of the range . . . You have to have energy density for a global plane. Basically, the electrocarrier as it functions for a plane has to be very high and then ultimately, it’s how you really use the fact that you have an electric motor driving the plane as opposed to a jet engine which is taking [inaudible]. You have to design a plane differently to deal with . . . its an interesting configuration of what you can do with vertical takeoff and landing angles with the design. It’s a tricky problem. I try not to think about because I have too much to think about.
Electric airplanes huh, that is going to be directly related to MAJOR advancements in batteries.
Yes Jason you are right, but many companies are investing lots of money in resarch for battery enhancements.
In my eyes this is just a question of time. One day there will be Electro-Airplanes.
Especially, if you take into account that oil will not be available forever for me it looks like it is the only solution to develop electric airplanes (even if it will take some time… )
baker act him now
Ya well said Jason. Perhaps what batteries (heavy duty) ones are able to store charge is meagre and shall need a massive upgrade or may be even new technological breakthrough in storing charge…..energy.
All the best to the gentleman !
I don’t think I’ll ever understand why TechCrunch has such a hard on for Elon Musk.
The dud got lucky with pay pal, and has been floundering ever since.
I just don’t see it. Good old boring VK is doing much more exciting things in the clean energy space.
Yeah – X.com was a failure after PayPal acquired it. He was fired from Paypal. It is not like he came up with the idea.
Floundering ever since? Guess that is why spacex is taking over space shuttle resupply to the ISS? lol.
I don’t see that happening anytime soon but I applaud him for attempting the near impossible. While there’s no question as to whether or not the plane would fly, it’s just not economically feasible from a business standpoint. The weight and amount of space the batteries would occupy, combined with the limited flight range are fatal flaws at this time.
What does it matter if we don’t have clean methods for generating the electricity?
I second it.
But we already have cleaner ways to generate electricity. Let them develop electric planes and more cleaner ways to generate electricity side-by-side.
But in my opinion hydrogen powered planes are feasible than electric planes.
Already there are clean ways of producing hydrogen for example, http://www.shec-labs.com
Direct PDF for Shec Labs:
http://www.shec...shec_poster.pdf
He is riding the phony green hype wave because it is the greatest con yet conceived. Musk is no different than a phony Nigerian online scam artist, Al Gore is their leader. VC firms are gullible and equally accountable.
I will never fly in an all electric airplane. Call me old-school but I trust combustible engines and fuel gages. (Also, I will likely be dead before the technology advances to that point.) With combustible engines, you can operate at full power until the last drop of fuel. Until batteries offer the same output, I watch as others take the first 1 millionth flight.
I could almost see this with advanced magnetic technology but even with that I would be highly suspicious. And maybe we small/light aircraft – not large passenger jets.
(Mechanical Engineer and former employee for a jet engine manufacturer.)
Hope the more conventional engine you are mentioning is not too combustible…
Haven’t electric motors powering planes been done? An example of one that I’ve seen up close. http://www.sone.../pr_072407.html
That is one vehicle I wouldn’t mind seeing it say the way it is for at least until 2100 or until whenever we get the kinks out for good; nobody wants planes dropping out the sky more than they do now.
Anybody know how much the batteries would weigh compared to gas ?
JC hit the crux of this issue. We still need to get the energy to power up the batteries. We should focus on cleaning up energy sources. Although Musk’s idea is interesting.
I am not really sure I would feel safer on an electric airplane. Have they thought about electrical storms, and all other incidentals?
lapp
http://www.worstpizza.com
let one lighting stike hit the plane and the batteries will become fully charged in a matter of seconds!
Where do you think the power comes from to charge the batteries?
>Especially, if you take into account that oil will not be available forever for me it looks like it is the only solution to develop electric airplanes (even if it will take some time… )
I’d rather see him spend his money on palladium research, but hey, it’s his dime.
Sorry guys, you’re getting it all wrong.
What does it take for everyone to see that we should make everything solar, not electrical?
yes, solar TVs, solar iPhones, solar web servers, and then solar cars and solar airplanes.
We need to re-engineer everything from scratch, a monumental task, true, but the only long term solution to our energy worries.
We are currently at an intermediate phase, going from coal->electricity to solar->electricity and from fuel->electricity. We’re wasting too much money and energy during this phase. We must think solar.
We need electrons. Solar is one way to get them. I agree with you, that the future is solar–or fusion.
Going after fusion would be a lot more interesting, and possibly a bit more realistic than an electric airplane. Jet engines have a pretty fantastic power to weight ratio, and are very good at making airplanes go very fast. Funding viable alternative fusion concepts (while avoiding the pseudo-scientific alternatives) would make a lot of sense. Fusion has so much potential, but all of our eggs are in one big expensive, difficult-to-see-a-pay-off basket.
‘Fast’ is something we need to get over, as soon as possible.
Here’s a link to a youtube video of a 1-person electric airplane, just FYI. If the link doesn’t work search electraflyer-c oshkosh 08.
http://www.yout...h?v=fWoLsJz8J5U
It’s going to be a while before you see an electric 747, though. That will be the day.
The idea does not look too bad if one gives up batteries and uses a nuclear isomer (Hf 183) to produce electricity. Shielding would beb lighter and more compact than with conventional NTR. A longish way, perhaps, but still feasible.
Well, we have electric planes – check Pipi Strel (Slovenian company) that produces ultra light planes.
http://www.pipi...el.si/planes/35
check out video
If EESTOR is real we might see a lot of smaller (1 to 4 seater) aircraft within the next 5 years!
They should first focus on making electric flying packs that allow people to actually fly
-Jack
for some reason I don’t think he will be around when those get invented