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Electric Vehicles

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RecoveringYuppy said:
I'd like to know this, not assume this. Just repeating it is possible in your opinion is not the least bit interesting. I'd like to understand it.
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Well you're asking me to design an airplane.

A battery is a box of various shapes and sizes with a positive and a negative lead. It strains my credulity to believe that it would be impossible to design a plane that has a panel that pops off that you can't hook a lift up to and drop a battery out and put a new one in. It's electricity, not fuel, it can be literally anywhere in the plane. You really don't think that's possible? My question is how could it not be?
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
That is just too stupid. Cars aren't airplanes. Fuselages need integrity, they try to minimize openings in them. Applying that idea directly to a plane might have the entire bottom half of the plane being opened up on each turn around. If you're not willing to put some thought in to this why not stop posting??
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lol this is getting weirdly aggressive. have a good night
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Is replacing batteries quickly going to be feasible? Ziggurat addressed the ownership/"chain of custody" issues, but do we know planes can be designed in a way that makes frequent replacement feasible? Constantly replacing a large component of the plane is not obviously a simple thing. Weight/strength and other requirements might make easy replacement hard to design for.

As you say, we can't replace fuel tanks. If the batteries have to be just as integrated for similar reasons it might be just as difficult to change batteries.
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Fuel tanks on a 737 contain about 40,000 liters of fuel which is about 1400 cubic feet and weigh over 40 tons when full. Batteries to replace that are going to be on a similar scale given where battery technology is.
 
dirtywick said:
Well you're asking me to design an airplane.

A battery is a box of various shapes and sizes with a positive and a negative lead. It strains my credulity to believe that it would be impossible to design a plane that has a panel that pops off that you can't hook a lift up to and drop a battery out and put a new one in. It's electricity, not fuel, it can be literally anywhere in the plane. You really don't think that's possible? My question is how could it not be?
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It should be possible to design a fuselage that keeps its integrity even if the battery box fell out (or one of them; probably best to have more than one.) But I can see a couple of problems with that:
  • It would require extra weight, and weight is an enemy in aircraft design.
  • The process of changing the batteries would subject the frame to bumps and bangs, which over time could weaken the fuselage.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it might be rather difficult to do correctly.
 
I have a test drive booked for October (October!). By then, no doubt, I will be drooling over the next "challenger to Tesla"

Head still says, for us, the Fiat is the sensible EV to buy
 
dirtywick said:
Well you're asking me to design an airplane.

A battery is a box of various shapes and sizes with a positive and a negative lead. It strains my credulity to believe that it would be impossible to design a plane that has a panel that pops off that you can't hook a lift up to and drop a battery out and put a new one in. It's electricity, not fuel, it can be literally anywhere in the plane. You really don't think that's possible? My question is how could it not be?
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Batteries in a plane could power propellers, no problem, but for large-scale commercial flights would that be enough? If not, what would provide the motive force?
 
Am I the only one imagining an electric plane that gets its battery swapped in half an hour, followed by a two day shakedown and test flight to recertify it?
 
Like they do after they've refuelled with kerosene?

I suspect that we will have small, light, prop planes powered by batteries and big jets powered by hydrogen
 
GlennB said:
Batteries in a plane could power propellers, no problem, but for large-scale commercial flights would that be enough? If not, what would provide the motive force?
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they use them in military cargo planes.
 
Blue Mountain said:
It should be possible to design a fuselage that keeps its integrity even if the battery box fell out (or one of them; probably best to have more than one.) But I can see a couple of problems with that:
  • It would require extra weight, and weight is an enemy in aircraft design.
  • The process of changing the batteries would subject the frame to bumps and bangs, which over time could weaken the fuselage.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it might be rather difficult to do correctly.
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This is what I was getting at. Note the numbers I cited in the post just before you posted. Tens of tons, over a thousand cubic feet. It's a massive part of the plane being changed frequently. It's not the same problem for a planes as it is for a car. You have to add a structure that can support the battery and retain the structural integrity of the fuselage while tens of tons roll in and out. Passengers and cargo are of the same magnitude but note that they are 100s of individual components that can come and go through small openings. For the 737 I cited as an example, if the design goal for access to the battery is 10 square feet of fuselage then the battery is going to be about 100 feet long. If the battery is more the form factor of a car, then you will have an opening that basically splits the fuselage on a large scale.


Jack by the hedge said:
Am I the only one imagining an electric plane that gets its battery swapped in half an hour, followed by a two day shakedown and test flight to recertify it?
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Yes, swapping out a battery is comparable to major maintenance on a plane.
 
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There was a documentary series that first aired in the sixties where the air transport section of the organisation operated an aircraft that could swap the majority of its fuselage and still be more than airworthy. It was called "Thundersomething."
 
dirtywick said:
they use them in military cargo planes.
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I had a search for battery-powered planes but could only find a Cesna test model and a bit of 'coming soon' from articles dated 2020. Do you have a reference for commercial use in planes?
 
GlennB said:
I had a search for battery-powered planes but could only find a Cesna test model and a bit of 'coming soon' from articles dated 2020. Do you have a reference for commercial use in planes?
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I meant they use propellers.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
This is what I was getting at. Note the numbers I cited in the post just before you posted. Tens of tons, over a thousand cubic feet. It's a massive part of the plane being changed frequently. It's not the same problem for a planes as it is for a car. You have to add a structure that can support the battery and retain the structural integrity of the fuselage while tens of tons roll in and out. Passengers and cargo are of the same magnitude but note that they are 100s of individual components that can come and go through small openings. For the 737 I cited as an example, if the design goal for access to the battery is 10 square feet of fuselage then the battery is going to be about 100 feet long. If the battery is more the form factor of a car, then you will have an opening that basically splits the fuselage on a large scale.





Yes, swapping out a battery is comparable to major maintenance on a plane.
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They could put multiple batteries in
 
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