A new aviation startup based out of Stockholm, Sweden, has its eye on producing an electric hybrid plane that can help "democratize and decarbonize" short-haul flights and reduce planet-warming pollution, according to a profile by The Next Web (TNW).
The company is called Heart Aerospace, and its aircraft, which is currently just an exposed metal frame, is called the ES-30. This initial full-scale model should be up and running for tests by the first half of next year, as the report detailed.Â
The company plans to start delivering finished models of the 30-passenger plane by 2028, just in time to start fulfilling the approximately 250 pre-orders from major airlines that are interested in the promise of a greener alternative.
"Battery-electric planes are great at zero-emission flight and efficient over a couple of hundred kilometers, but more than that is not possible unless we have major breakthroughs in battery technology," Henri Werij, head of aerospace engineering at TU Delft, shared with TNW.
Battery weight is a major hurdle for aerospace engineers, but with the advent of solid-state, and increased density lithium-ion designs, electric aircraft are more viable than ever.
The aviation industry is responsible for almost 2.5% of global, planet-warming carbon pollution, and without action, it could get much higher, per the article. Luckily, the aviation sector has already committed to halving that pollution by 2050, relative to 2005 levels.
The plane includes lithium-ion battery packs, which offer a range of 200 kilometers (about 124 miles), but it will also carry a reserve of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) that can boost the range up to 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles).
That cleaner fuel, derived from things like cooking oil, municipal waste, and even waste gases from industry, can help companies transition away from dirtier fuels, but production capacity needs to be increased to meet demand.
The practical design offers a zero-carbon solution with lower noise and the ability to use shorter runways, opening access to smaller airports. It uses forward-facing propellers, unlike the variety of small-passenger, vertical takeoff and landing designs being tested.
"A lot of companies obsess over how an electric aircraft will look. We are thinking about how an electric aircraft will work," the company's founder and CEO, Anders Forslund, shared with TNW.
These shorter flights may only contribute 5.5% of aviation's pollution, as the article noted, but it's a good place to start. It will also provide cleaner air travel for commuters in the snowy and mountainous Scandinavian region, where even electrified land-based transport isn't viable.
In fact, Heart's founders were spurred to devise a cleaner solution for these distances after Norway pledged to electrify all its short-haul flights by 2040, per the article.
Similar projects are being worked on, such as Maeve Aerospace's 80-passenger electric aircraft, but given the state of technology and rigorous standards involved, it is years away.
"Our first plane won't be perfect but it will lay the foundation for the next version and the next," Forslund shared with TNW. "Our planes will keep on improving along with the technologies it depends on."
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