Tesla’s Elon Musk says that batteries enabling electric aircraft are coming in ‘3 to 4 years’
By:Fred Lambert
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has updated the timeline on which he sees batteries enabling electric aircraft coming to maket. He now sees it happening in “3 to 4 years.”
Several years ago, Musk, the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, said that he had a design for electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft — though he never elaborated on plans to bring the aircraft to production.
In order for his design to work, Musk said that the energy density of batteries needs to improve.
At the time, he mentioned a threshold of around 400 Wh/kg while Tesla’s batteries were achieving around 260 Wh/kg.
400 Wh/kg *with* high cycle life, produced in volume (not just a lab) is not far. Probably 3 to 4 years.
https://electrek.co/2020/08/25/tesla-elon-musk-batteries-enabling-electric-aircraft-coming/The battery technology is about three years away. There's a laundry list of large tech, automotive, and aerospace companies that want to get in on this type of aircraft.
Including:
Airbus
Tesla
Toyota
Hyundai
Boeing
Google
Autonomous flying of aircraft is actually easier that autonomous cars.
