The world’s first all-electric passenger aircraft has successfully taken to the sky for its inaugural flight in Washington.
Israeli-founded company Eviation Aircraft successfully launched the Alice last week from Washington’s Grant County International Airport. The zero-emission 9-passenger plane, with twin propellers mounted at the back of the aircraft, traveled at an altitude of 3,500 feet for its eight minute inaugural flight.
“This is history,” Gregory Davis, Eviation’s president and CEO, told CNN Business.”We have not seen the propulsion technology change on the aircraft since we went from the piston engine to the turbine engine. It was the 1950s that was the last time you saw an entirely new technology like this come together.”
With battery technology similar to that of an electric car and 30 minutes of charging, the Alice will be able to fly for one hour to two hours. Based on today’s battery technology, Eviation is targeting a range of 250 nautical miles. The plane has a max cruise speed of 250 knots, or 287 miles per hour. That's about half the speed of a commercial jet powered by fossil fuels, but still a rapid way of getting from A to B with zero emissions.
The company says it expects to be working on developing an FAA-certified aircraft through 2025 followed by a year or two of flight testing before it can deliver Alices to customers. Eviation is currently targeting entering the plane into service by 2027.