Eviation Alice (Electric Regional Airliner)

[alberchico]

Found a short news report that gives an overview of the project.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZjsDRx7YS4

 

[Nicknick]

I don't know when this clip has been fabricated, it is missing some essential points, e.g. like designing again a completly new aircraft. I also doubt, that the one single test flight was a great success...

 

[Nicknick]

The little known HPA TT62 had a quite similar arrangement like the Elice II, maybe was having the same interference problems...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/wqdwc6/hpa_tt62_alekto_sleek_unique_and_boreline_not

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/wqdwc6/hpa_tt62_alekto_sleek_unique_and_boreline_not/?rdt=35316

 

[TomcatViP]

Nooooooo!!!!!

Electric airplane aspirant Eviation lays off most of its staff

Most of its remaining staff were let go last week as Eviation explores “strategic opportunities.”

theaircurrent.com

 

[alberchico]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/wa-electric-plane-startup-halts-operations-in-blow-to-green-aviation/

Damn. They ran out of time and money. I really wanted them to succeed but the writing was on the wall for a long time. Battery density simply isn't good enough for a viable 9 seat commuter aircraft nor will it considerably improve within the near future. Other established players like Tecnam and Embraer also reached the same conclusion and ditched their electric 9 seater projects. Still, they must be commended for having stuck around long enough to produce a beautiful prototype and fly it, albeit for a total of 8 minutes. For a detailed explanation of why an all electric 9 seater isn't viable at the moment, I'll post this link from Tecnam which lays out the reasons why the P-Volt program was cancelled.

Tecnam to postpone the P-VOLT Programme - Tecnam Aircraft

After three years of intensive studies covering the entire lifecycle of an all-electric aircraft, Tecnam has concluded that the time for P-Volt is not yet ripe, although research activities will continue to explore new emerging technologies. Since the beginning of the P-Volt development...

tecnam.com

 

[Nicknick]

The so called "leader of electric aviation" hasn't archieve a lot, quite similar to Lilium... Lilium flew around 5 min with an empty demonstrater and Alice 8 min, at least 3 min longer. That was the their whole test program after buring lots of cash...

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Alice is at the end of the rainbow, alas no gold. A truthful account of its development would make a good book or Netflix episode……it must have been nuts.

 

[alberchico]

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/inside-the-abrupt-collapse-of-electric-airplane-startup-eviation/

Finally we get the inside story of why the company imploded. A lot of nuggets of valuable information here. To me the most interesting bit is that the Israeli investors were not happy with the way the MagniX motors were incorporated into the design necessitating major airframe changes due to their weight, simply because their main investors also have a stake in that company as well.

But then again, everything I've read about the MagniX motors says that they are the most mature flight proven electric engines out there. With the benefit of hindsight, if they had designed this aircraft with a traditional wing mounted engine layout like the King Air, they could have incorporated heavier engines without making any airframe alterations.