13 votes

"World's first" fully-electric commercial flight takes off

2 comments

  1. [2]
    pseudolobster
    Link
    That's surprisingly ambitious. They must be really confident this will save them money in the long term. Harbour air only serves a 50km hop over the Georgia Straight, so they're an ideal candidate...

    Harbour Air hopes to electrify its entire fleet by 2022, provided it secures safety and regulatory approvals.

    That's surprisingly ambitious. They must be really confident this will save them money in the long term.

    Harbour air only serves a 50km hop over the Georgia Straight, so they're an ideal candidate for electric - they have no need for long range. I have to wonder how long it takes to charge these though, since they do multiple trips per day I think. I've used them before when I lived in Victoria any time we needed same day delivery from the mainland. In emergency situations where I'd need to order a RAID card from NCIX etc, customers were willing to pay the $500 it cost. I assume they flew one plane over and the same one back. I wonder if charge times will mean they need more planes sitting on standby for return flights.

    5 votes
    1. Greg
      Link Parent
      I wonder if they're planning to swap out the batteries between trips? That way they could have a set charging and a set flying - still potentially expensive up front, but presumably less expensive...

      I wonder if they're planning to swap out the batteries between trips? That way they could have a set charging and a set flying - still potentially expensive up front, but presumably less expensive than more planes!

      Aircraft might well be better suited than cars to battery swaps: there's pretty much always a qualified mechanic available at the endpoints, as well as a company presence to store and charge their own batteries. Cars would have to swap en route at third party locations, which brings in a whole set of trust and quality issues with the battery and its installation.

      3 votes