This article is short on specifics. An increase in energy density to what? From 260w/kg to 400w or 500w/kg?

Very interesting, but where would all of this leave Tesla battery supplier Panasonic?

Mass producing it in 2027 means they still have a lot of unknowns and not sorted stuff. So it can go both ways till then.

Quote from: Mmad ebikes on January 19, 2023, 07:05:37My reply is to a comment from nanobot in regards to batteries being volatile in air craft projects , wasn't airplane fuel three times more volatile than regular gas? Did the engineering of most aircraft makers make strategic preparations for the safety factor of liquid fuel? Also the power density of the newest lithium battery technology would be safer still than aircraft fuel and with the Tesla coming development with LI-S batteries I am sure safety is the first rule of thumb and both engineers from either industry can team up for that strategy.

Whether this is true or not, the fact is we've been safely using jet fuel for a long time now, whereas batteries for such use are new and therefore unknown, regardless of how safe they are. And to think it will be ok because safety will be "the first rule of thumb" is a potentially dangerous line of thought, considering you could say the same regarding battery-powered cars, yet look at all the incidents with those. I'm not saying it can't/won't be safer, or that it shouldn't be used, but we should always use caution with such big changes, especially when dealing with something as major as airplanes. I'm sorry, but I've seen enough screwups to not simply trust that they'll get it right. And that's just the safety aspect. As I mentioned, there's also the very real possibility of them doing this just to "be green" and end up burning more fossil fuels due to the lower energy density.

My reply is to a comment from nanobot in regards to batteries being volatile in air craft projects , wasn't airplane fuel three times more volatile than regular gas? Did the engineering of most aircraft makers make strategic preparations for the safety factor of liquid fuel? Also the power density of the newest lithium battery technology would be safer still than aircraft fuel and with the Tesla coming development with LI-S batteries I am sure safety is the first rule of thumb and both engineers from either industry can team up for that strategy.

These newer Lithium batteries are much safer and do not catch  fire like the old style lithium ion batteries witch  like you said were very volatile,  things have come along way in the last few years , just a shame that they can never be as power dense as aviation fuel

Chemical batteries are limited in power vs. weight.
The Long term solution for aviation fuel is frozen hydrogen pellets, containing high energy at low weight.

Battery-powered planes seems like a terrible idea. First, while rare, batteries can spontaneously ignite and explode. When the Note 7's were exploding airlines were requiring passengers to turn them off completely, because even a battery as small as that could potentially take down a plane. Yet we want to fill planes with them? Second, batteries are more affected by other factors, such as temperature, and even if these do better in colder temps, colder/warmer temps will still reduce range, and if they do so in an unpredictable way, it could lead to a plane not having the estimated range, which can be disastrous.

Finally, and least significant in terms of risk but most significant due to the fact it will be a guaranteed problem 100% of the time, is the fact that the energy needed for flight needs to be enough to overcome the weight of the energy source. Since batteries have significantly lower energy density than fuel, electric planes will require significantly more energy for the same flight as a regular plane. This is moving in the wrong direction. Granted, that energy may be able to be produced more efficiently and cleaner, but even then, the need for more energy may offset that. The only way this would actually be beneficial would be if the majority of the energy planes use is created via renewable resources and nuclear, which doesn't seem likely.