Wright Electric has teamed up with easyJet, Britain’s biggest budget carrier and aims “for every short flight to be electric within 20 years”. It is seeking investors to help build a 150-seat passenger aircraft capable of flying 300 miles. this American start-up plans to launch planes powered by stored electricity following immediately after a week when battery-powered electronic devices bigger than a mobile phone were banned from the cabins of dozens of UK- and US-bound planes is indeed a fresh air of thought.
The plane is intended to compete with the smaller members of the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families. The firm says in one of its blog that the plane will be “optimised for short flights” — an indication of the profound difficulty to be overcome in battery storage.
The company is assuming that battery technology will continue to improve at the current rate, allowing the weight and volume of batteries to shrink to feasible levels.
According to the plan, Wright Electric hopes to create a viable aircraft where they can reduce the cruising speed – not a crucial variable for passengers on shorter flights. The plan B of Wright Electric says that if battery improvements fail to materialise, they will design the plane as a hybrid with electric motors.
The company claims three in 10 narrow-body flights are less than 300 miles, It is targeting short, dense routes such as Rio-Sao Paolo, Tokyo-Osaka and the world’s busiest link, from Seoul to the Korean holiday island of Jeju. Wright Electric already claims a potential first customer: “A high-net-worth-individual wants our electric 150-seater as his fifth private jet.”
