First electric cars, now electric planes
GM (MTLQQ) has earned high praise this summer – and deservedly so – for its announcement that the forthcoming Chevy Volt electric car will get as much as much as 230 miles per gallon for in-town driving.
But while Detroit was stealing headlines on the ground, a little-known Chinese company was doing something even more incredible in the skies.
At the OshKosh AirVenture show a few weeks ago, Beijing startup Yuneec International took the wraps off the world’s first commercially produced electric aircraft, the E430.
Powered by lithium polymer batteries, weighing close to a thousand pounds, and sipping about $2.50 worth of electricity per hour of flight, the E430 has completed more than 20 hours in test runs during the last couple months, including one in Camarillo, CA, that can be seen here.
Little more has been revealed about the E430, other than some technical specifications and that it can operate for up to three hours without a charge.
Today: adding electricity-powered systems
And while the E430 may be the aircraft equivalent of an auto show concept-car, there’s a good deal of progress being made in the advancement of electrical aeronautics on the whole. “What’s going on with modern aircraft is a revolution, whether you’re thinking about commercial or military aircraft,” says Bob Smith, VP of advanced technology at Honeywell Aerospace, a unit of Honeywell (HON).
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