With all the innovations we have seen in the last few decades,
Elon Musk and his companies have brought some of the most innovative methods in space exploration and on-road transportation. But it might not be just space and earth the billionaire genius may be gazing on, it is also on the empire of the sky. The world of aviation has been the least progressive in the few decades, but that’s not because human beings could not come up with better alternatives but it’s just because the alternatives would have unparalleled effects on either its financing or environmental sustainability. But could that be answered with electricity? How does Tesla plan to develop one of its most ambitious projects to take flights to the next level? Welcome to Top Electric...... Unlike the automotive and interplanetary ambitions of Musk, we have limited knowledge of what to expect from the Tesla plane so we will try to breakdown the video into five parts Does Tesla have plans for the aviation industry, will it be better than a conventional plane, the problems an electric plane need to overcome, the solutions and what to expect from it. And if you are new to our channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button Also, we have kept some bonus facts about the Tesla plane at the end of this video, so make sure you watch all the way through! What are Tesla’s plans for the aviation industry? Tesla is forward with its on-road transportations. You can find thousands of videos and leeks about the innovations with their on-road EVs, but a Tesla plane seems like something that would take a lot of time that it’s not worth to wait. But contradictory to these, Elon Musk has himself stated that he is thinking about producing an efficient electric plane. Take a look at this interview where you can hear it from the horse’s mouth. A better design? I mean probably I think it is we've talked about this no no, I have talked to friends friends? friends and... I'm your friend girlfriend and, you can tell me haha chuckles... what you've got? What's going on? what I mean, the exciting thing to do would be... some sort of electric vertical takeoff and landing supersonic jet or some kind...... vertical take-off & landing means no need for a runway, just shoot up... straight in the air, yeah... What we can take from the information we know is that Elon has told over and over that his idea for the plane would be VTOL or simply put- a craft that can take off vertically. He also confirmed that he plans to put make it a supersonic jet as observed from his interviews. But just looking on the bright side is not enough to state how well it can perform. Looking into the huge problems and developments needed for the project is yet another signification that Tesla is seriously considering this project. Elon states the ability they have for a Tesla plane is not just an economical problem but a barrier of efficiency and resources. It's an entirely different regularly regime, and... like there's there aren't any car companies that are also aircraft companies I think it's incredibly hard to bring an aircraft to production and meet all of the regulatory uh requirements worldwide where its a very difficult thing we would have to not do a bunch of other things it's not like there's like a ton of unallocated resources that tells them like oh what should we do? no... uhh, it's like... a constant resource starvation its incredibly difficult to find the right talent integrate into an organization and have it be work effectively. uh, it's not a money thing especially um there's just a fundamental limitation on exceptional engineers. Although Tesla is going for a full capacity plane, there have been multiple studies and patents presented by car manufacturing companies like Tesla and Hyundai for a prototype of cars that could carry 3 to 4 people on air. Since there are companies other than Tesla that invest in such technologies, it would bring the needed competition for Tesla to present their best results- fast. Better than a conventional plane? We have a problem with our planes. No, it is not the lack of innovation, but it is the lack of practicality and expense. Take the Concorde for example, When it came out in the 80’s it could do a New York to London flight in just 3.5 hours. But even though this was practical, it had countless problems especially with the fuel pricing and the damage it could do to the ozone layer. It was twice as fast as the speed of sound which means it was considerably noisy and needed extra care for take-off and landings. The flight was soon stopped because of these problems and we seem to have hit the limit in aviation unless we try to use an electric plane. Electric planes run on battery and can be a lot cheaper. and we would also reduce the manufacturing cost and would not have a ridiculously high maintenance cost as a traditional plane. According to Musk, he also plans to make the take-offs more efficient by limiting the runway distance. If the plane could produce upward thrust which can then be redirected as forwarding thrust for movement, the flight could practically take off like a drone. Since the upward thrust could be divided with multiple propellers, it can be used to limit the noise production from take-off. This is also practically possible as the estimated power for an aircraft to take-off would be just 400 watt-hours per kilogram. Tesla is also working on improving its battery capacity compelling aircraft you only really need about 400 watt-hours per kilogram provide your the your percentage of the cell on the craft on the aircraft is high it doesn't need to be anywhere near as high as it is on a rocket but if its sort of at the 70 percent level at 400 watts per kilogram you can do a very decent range Unlike conventional planes, the Tesla plane would be supersonic without the problems we have currently. This means that transportation would be much faster and can reduce the travel period by an approximated 50 percent. The Problems When we are talking about the Tesla planes, we can’t ignore some of the challenges that lay ahead that Tesla has to overcome. The biggest problem with any electric plane would be the battery. This is something Elon Musk has talked about very often as one of the biggest barriers to a Tesla plane. Even though batteries are powerful, they can only store a limited supply of energy. Unlike fuels which you can transport and transfer in a very limited time, it is just not possible with electricity. Tesla IS working on improving their battery capacities and according to Musk, there might be possibilities of creating more efficient batteries in just a couple of years. hen there is the fact that flights cannot have pitstops. Even if you have a full battery on your Tesla car, you might have to make a stop or two if you are having a cross-country road trip. Now imagine flying 100s of feet up in the sky over nations in a single foot. Fortunately, multiple companies are working on ways to make batteries more efficient without bulking up their size and it should be a relief for anyone looking forward to the Tesla plane. But it is not just the battery capacity that the airlines would have a problem but it is also the safety. Fuel tanks in a plane can have multiple safeguards to make sure that it does not get damaged and even if it does get damaged, there are steps to reduce the magnitude. However, since the electric plane is still in its very early stages, There is just not enough research nor certifications to provide a protective protocol if something happens to the battery. It is also really expensive to regularly check for faults in the battery compared to just checking the fuel pipes on a traditional plane. The conventional plane also has options to dump fuel if something goes wrong while taking off or landing to minimize explosive damages but if a battery catches fire, there is no way you can just dump the battery out of the plane and away from the passengers. Can Tesla Solve the problems of an all-electric plane? Pretty much all problems have a solution. As long as there is time, we humans will make solutions that are efficient and simple. This can be expected with Tesla. The problems of an electric plane are not as tremendous either. It has already been proved we can take off supersonic jets from a vertical take of. It is also possible that electric planes can travel for limited distances but only with a limited speed of fewer than 40 kilometers per hour. Does that sentence sound familiar? Yes, it was exactly what people used to say about electric cars when they were slow and of low mileage, Then Tesla happened and changed the world of electric automobiles. The same thing can be done for planes. Musk also stated that to overcome the problems, he plans of merging the facilities of Tesla with the aero engineers from SpaceX. This will also provide a needed informative resource for an electric plane that no other company has. He has also stated that the prototypes of flying cars can be practical. Moreover, the biggest problems with batteries are being worked on every day. Not just EVs but appliances and technologies require smaller yet efficient batteries and the effort to make efficient batteries are being studies from all aspects of every industry. When the battery problems are solved, it is only a matter of tests and certifications to see the first electric planes. Try to imagine what time has done to computers. The computers back in the ’80s were ginormous but had extremely low power. Now it can be as sleek as a MacBook yet have unparalleled power compared to the old computers. It is only a matter of time that we see this pattern in batteries as well. Tesla also manages to bring an alternative to the power source. Instead of charging from the ground, it would be practical if the plane could charge mid-flight right? Well, there is a way and it’s called solar power. Having extremely efficient solar panels could also provide an additional power supply to the Tesla plane and it would be as efficient as having a backup fuel tank to a conventional plane. Granted Tesla must need to reinvent the whole solar panels to have the most efficiency, it is something absolutely doable at least in theory. But not all solutions come from Tesla, some of the solutions for the EV plane come from people who care about the environment. There has been fundings and specified researches conducted to produce efficient electric planes and the best thing is that these are open sources. Kevin Noertker, CEO of Ampaire, states that “we need to make changes to the industry and electrification is one of the big trends that will hopefully reduce that burden. Now we get to the most important part of the video let’s take a look at how far and how possible it is for Tesla to release an electric plane! It is not easy estimating a fixed date for the Tesla plane. But scientific progress in the field of electronic solutions and the interest Musk has shown for the project can be used to give out a rough period where you can expect the production. According to researches from the description, it is very much possible that we can expect to see a smaller and efficient battery within 3 to four years. Take a look at this tweet by Musk where he confirms its possibility. Next, assuming that Tesla starts to at least make a blueprint for the machine, it would take 2 to 3 years of testing and researches to make a practical model. But that won’t be the end as there are still aviation certifications required to mass-produce the aircraft. This would add on an additional 1 to 2 years and Tesla would need another year or so to make the aircraft commercial. In addition, it might even take longer, of up to a year, where some new protocols have to be made for an electric plane. Adding this all up, you have to roughly wait almost 8 more years to see the supersonic electric plane soaring through the skies. You can also expect the plane to have a large passenger and cargo capacity and the plane would be more efficient. You can also expect the Tesla plane to be immensely government approved and funded as it would help nations to adapt to greener transportations. Just like SpaceX cooperates with NASA, government aviation departments can also contribute with Tesla to make aviation more efficient, effective and cheaper. But speaking of price, you might have to wait a few more years to have ridiculously cheap flights as Tesla would still need to make the money back that they invested for research in its initial years. Did you enjoy our video? Would you like to try out the Tesla plane when it comes out? Let us know in the comments. And if you would like to watch more videos about EVs, hit that subscribe button or why don’t you watch some of our other interesting videos popping up on your screen right now! We will see you later with another video, until then, goodbye!
