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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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I really hope this will catch on for once, it could be a great solution for all those people who insist they have to do domestic flights... (in countries like Germany which aren't that big comparatively speaking)
Yeah unfortunately this is only viable for extremely short flights 100-200 miles as the article says. Batteries are just too heavy and planes needs too much power for anything more.
These would be the perfect private jet for the ultra rich who take a jet to work a few minutes away, or to go shopping, but for commercial flights they’re basically not an option until we have a huge breakthrough in battery tech. We need the mythical “coming next year” for the last 20 years “solid state batteries”.
As I said in another comment, this is a step towards making a more efficient hybrid plane for trips under 500 miles, of which about 4 million are made per year in the U.S. alone. Having enough battery power to take off efficiently makes those trips a lot more economical. On longer flights, fuel for takeoff is a lot smaller portion of the overall costs and doesn't matter as much. Except for all the fossil fuel burned, of course.
Yeah and I agree, that’s a great step that hopefully will come to fruition soon enough. I’m just saying that people need to temper their expectations because full electric passenger flights, especially long haul, are simply not possible with existing battery technology, not even close.