Will the Next Mooney Be Electric?

[Healthpilot]

Today in Washington State: https://www.geekwire.com/2022/eviation-all-electric-alice-airplane-first-flight-test/

[0TreeLemur]

I'd wager that there will be no next Mooney.  Certifying a new type is too costly.

[carusoam]

We have gone from never going to happen…

To a small electric kri kri crossing the English channel 

To a twin motor multi seat corporate plane looking device…

In only a few years…

 

Who would expect Harley Davidson to build an electric motorcycle?

In the business news today… Harley is spinning off that business…. 

 

An electric Mooney would be awesome… 1k+ UL, 1k+nm range, 190kts TAS… or better… 

Set some goals… then crush them on the way by… 

Go Mooney!

Best regards,

-a-

[RobertGary1]

The part I don’t understand is weight. I rarely can take full fuel in my Mooney. So will you always be limited to full fuel weight???

[carusoam]

I bet the electrons weigh next to nothing….

So, you can fill the tanks full of electrons… and not have a weight and balance problem throughout the flight…

even if you run out of electrons before the flight is over…

Positive thoughts regarding battery driven Long XCs…

Expect the flight that these planes are designed for… is probably island hopping… Cape Air style…

Best regards,

-a-

[KSMooniac]

Half of the Alice weight is battery...and it's always there, even if the electrons aren't.

We're a very long ways off from any electric plane equaling the utility of any Mooney, unfortunately.

Perhaps a breakthrough in hydrogen or other fuel source that powers a hybrid system will come first. Electric motors are very simple, but delivering energy to them as efficiently as a fossil fuel engine isn't.

Sent from my LM-V450 using Tapatalk

[Greg Ellis]

5 hours ago, KSMooniac said:

Perhaps a breakthrough in hydrogen or other fuel source that powers a hybrid system will come first. Electric motors are very simple, but delivering energy to them as efficiently as a fossil fuel engine isn't.

 

They are trying (not a new fuel source but a combination of two available).... this flew at Oshkosh this year.  Ampaire Electric Hybrid Flies from California To Oshkosh - Plane & Pilot (planeandpilotmag.com)

[Guest]

Our local flying club/ flight school is getting a Pipistrel electric airplane soon.  The charging system is being installed now.  

[Pinecone]

For a trainer, it makes some sense.

1 hour duration, 20 - 30 minute charge, that works.

 

But as pointed out, for a cross country airplane, you are always at "full fuel weight."  So no flexibility.  Yes, if they could give you 1000 pound UL, but that would be equal to 1600 UL with a gasoline powered aircraft.

[GeeBee]

I will be taking a dirt nap before a practical x-country electric airplane is made.

 

[A64Pilot]

What’s interesting is all the orders they have, with a stated 200 to 300 NM range.

But what really surprises me is the millions already spent on electric VTOL taxis for intercity travel, those companies have raised huge amounts of money.

[A64Pilot]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

For a trainer, it makes some sense.

1 hour duration, 20 - 30 minute charge, that works.

From what I know about batteries, that’s either not likely, or will greatly reduce cycle life, besides being inefficient.

Heat is the issue, put a big load on a battery and it gets hot, charge one fast and it gets hot.

Tesla manages that somewhat with an about 3 Ton heat pump and an efficient and heavy bunch of flat copper tubes snaking through the pack full of antifreeze cooled by the heat pump, but the Pipistrel is I’m nearly certain air cooled, like the Nissan Leaf pack.

I’d assume to make a trainer work well you would need an easily replaceable pack and three or maybe more packs and change them out, like we do now with drills etc. One flying, one cooling after flying, one charging, and maybe one more to be cooling after charging. I’d think maybe a fan to blow air through the pack to help the cooling.

We do that with electric model airplanes that have been popular for more than a decade, it takes three packs or more to keep flying, just don’t do the fan as their packs don’t really have any cooling built in

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Our local flying club/ flight school is getting a Pipistrel electric airplane soon.  The charging system is being installed now.  

Are you going to get to work on it?    Should be interesting to see how the operational stuff goes.

 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Are you going to get to work on it?    Should be interesting to see how the operational stuff goes.

 

No, they have their own maintenance department.

[Coach43]

Getting my popcorn ready.... for the eVTOL disasters. 

Nothing like taking a toy multi-rotor copter, where EVERY component is a single point of failure, and then scaling it up.

Yeah, that should work!

Ready....

[Igor_U]

This is a a good article about Eviation Alice by Dominic Gates:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/first-u-s-all-electric-airplane-takes-flight-at-moses-lake/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all

Read the (new) CEO statements in it. It seems that even they, now, realize it will need new, yet to be developed batteries to have specified performance and expected development time is 5 years. I think, personally they are delusional but, hey, that's what investor(s) want to hear. 

It took them a while to come to this point, partially due to the fire of the first "prototype" that had unusual and uncertifiable configuration (tail-dragger with 3 engines)  shown at Le Bourget show few years ago. It looks like their main investor will still support them as well as sister company MagniX that manufactures the electric motors. We shall see how long will that continue but couple of key people (founders) left both companies, presumably due to lack of pace. 

Aviation is a tough business and almost sure way to make a large fortune out of huge one.  

[Fly Boomer]

53 minutes ago, Igor_U said:

good article about Eviation Alice by Dominic Gate

I stopped reading at "8,000 pounds of batteries".

[Pinecone]

3 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

From what I know about batteries, that’s either not likely, or will greatly reduce cycle life, besides being inefficient.

Heat is the issue, put a big load on a battery and it gets hot, charge one fast and it gets hot.

Tesla manages that somewhat with an about 3 Ton heat pump and an efficient and heavy bunch of flat copper tubes snaking through the pack full of antifreeze cooled by the heat pump, but the Pipistrel is I’m nearly certain air cooled, like the Nissan Leaf pack.

I’d assume to make a trainer work well you would need an easily replaceable pack and three or maybe more packs and change them out, like we do now with drills etc. One flying, one cooling after flying, one charging, and maybe one more to be cooling after charging. I’d think maybe a fan to blow air through the pack to help the cooling.

We do that with electric model airplanes that have been popular for more than a decade, it takes three packs or more to keep flying, just don’t do the fan as their packs don’t really have any cooling built in

 

A 30 minute charge is not a high rate.  That is a 2C rate.

One trick is, to not fully charge.  That is what your phone does to get so many cycles.  They only charge to 80% of the actual capacity.  And that also reduces the charge time, since you can rapidly charge to that point.  Beyond that point, you become voltage limited to avoid damage, so the charge rate slows.

I have run a lot of lipo batteries in RC airplanes and helis.   With moderate charge rates.

Yes, if you have time, a slower charge rate is better.

[Healthpilot]

The company is based at KAWO and that's where I hangar my Mooney.

Range and payload will be an issue for a long time. I'd be surprised if they can get more than 200NM on average in the real world.

There is a LOT of R&D going into battery technology these days and all the systems and software around them now. 

The advantages are clear to all of us and the public around noise polluted and populated areas/airports. 

[A64Pilot]

27 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

 

A 30 minute charge is not a high rate.  That is a 2C rate.

One trick is, to not fully charge.  That is what your phone does to get so many cycles.  They only charge to 80% of the actual capacity.  And that also reduces the charge time, since you can rapidly charge to that point.  Beyond that point, you become voltage limited to avoid damage, so the charge rate slows.

I have run a lot of lipo batteries in RC airplanes and helis.   With moderate charge rates.

Yes, if you have time, a slower charge rate is better.

I run the Tesla between 30% and 60%. Hurricane is hitting us tonight so I went up to 90% this once as I don’t how long we will be without power and don’t want to recharge it with the generator.

But partial SOC cycling greatly extends cycle life. https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries the shallower he cycle, the longer the life.

But here is the problem, I can do that with our car because I have no need for the range, so I can accept only 30% of the power available. 

But that little airplane can’t. I can assure you to get an hour out of it, it’s using all of its capacity, like we do with RC models.

To get decent life cycle you want to charge no faster than .5c to 1c, a two to three hour charge rate https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-409-charging-lithium-ion

Then add in big passively cooled packs hold heat much longer than small pouch cells like we use in models, so if you landed that little airplane the pack is already hot, then you charge it at a 2c rate it’s only getting hotter, then you take off again it build even more heat, heat reduces life of course, and in an extreme you know what happens.

They could mitigate that if the pack had a built in cooling system that plugged in with the charger and circulated cold coolant, but I bet lunch it doesn’t.

Not beating on the little airplane, just batteries come with limitations and even though for some reason the Government etc thinks we need huge numbers of fast chargers, you really don’t want to do that often.

Read an article that said California needed x number of chargers to support 7x number of EV’s, which is stupid, you may need 1 fast charger per 50 it 100 EV’s not 1 for every 7.

Of course that article was before the power shortages.

[A64Pilot]

Found it, how can they be this stupid? Do gas cars need 1 gas pump per 7 gas cars?

https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2021-06/report-shows-california-needs-12-million-electric-vehicle-chargers-2030

I smell someone is going to make huge profits from these chargers

 

[Pinecone]

The thing is, with % capacity, you have to know what 100 means.

AFAIK, 100% charge on a cell phone is actually 80% of full capacity of the pack to increase the number of cycles.

Hmm, on an airplane, you can put out a scoop and get some nice ram air for cooling.

 

[Coach43]

How deep does the water need to be to short out a Tesla?

I'll bet that would total it... and I don't want to be standing in the garage when it happens!

[A64Pilot]

14 minutes ago, Coach43 said:

How deep does the water need to be to short out a Tesla?

I'll bet that would total it... and I don't want to be standing in the garage when it happens!

They will actually float and the spinning wheels will provide some propulsion, I looked into it a little while ago knowing things like the power train can’t be sealed, there has to be a vent. Well it does have a vent that’s Goretex covered so it’s waterproof.

Personally I won’t put mine in deep water, but it’s interesting to see that it can.

 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

The thing is, with % capacity, you have to know what 100 means.

AFAIK, 100% charge on a cell phone is actually 80% of full capacity of the pack to increase the number of cycles.

Hmm, on an airplane, you can put out a scoop and get some nice ram air for cooling.

 

Even with cars you really don’t know, ALL batteries over time and cycles lose capacity, known in the EV world as range degradation, Supposedly Tesla gives you 100% of the actual capacity, but it’s known that some don’t, there is a buffer and some cars will as they age use that buffer to hide degradation if you will, they will charge to slightly higher voltages to keep the range from decreasing. But the Tesla battery’s degradation is well known by now after more than a decade, and some at or over 400,000 miles, and I guess a million or so cars. All Tesla’s phone home if you will so Tesla can check things like range degradation of the fleet.

A few years ago Tesla sent out an over the air update that increased the range of some of the models, apparently over the years from watching degradation of the fleet they decided to push the full charge higher (that’s my supposition) later range increase updates claim increased efficiency from software, this is the later update

https://electrek.co/2020/10/16/tesla-software-update-increasing-range-existing-vehicles/

They have even increased the power thru an over the air update 

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30393484/tesla-model-3-firmware-update-power-performance-test/

I think mine will eventually age out, based on what I read of battery degradation I don’t think mine will ever cycle out, but even if a battery is very gently used etc., it will eventually die from age. I just don’t know if that will be one decade or two. 

But back to the airplane, both the Prius with its tiny traction battery and the Leaf are air cooled and that has negatively effected them life wise, active liquid cooling is apparently much better, but more expensive and heavy, and requires a heat pump or AC compressor, so not likely in an airplane. 100 lbs here or there isn’t a big deal for a car like it is in an airplane, and cars don’t pull continuous high power either like an airplane does. I suspect the little Pipistrel to get a full hour is at a low power cruise a lot of it. Pipistrel is a well known glider manufacturer, they are good at keeping an airplane in the air with very little power I’m thinking.