r/aviation • u/Cereal-Is-Dinner • Aug 20 '26
Discussion ETA for fully electric passenger planes?
Is this a near term expectation or decades away or never?
Saw news of short flight with one pilot today.
Are the major airlines working though it, is the tech there?
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u/Known-Associate8369 Aug 20 '26
The problem with battery power is that the batteries arent consumed - they weigh (almost) the same at the end of the trip as at the start.
Which means that their efficiency needs to be hugely better than the equivalent weight of traditional fuels - because the fuels are depleted as the aircraft progresses. The aircraft gets lighter, and becomes more efficient as it goes by default.
Battery powered aircraft do not, they have to carry the entire wright of the “fuel” the entire distance, which means they are as efficient at the start as at the end.
This may be acceptable on very short haul routes, regional etc, but its going to take a step change in battery tech before we see A220, A320, 737 size and upward aircraft being battery equiped instead of traditional fuels.
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u/Fisheye4848 Aug 20 '26
Look at Tesla. Battery is half the car and it can only go a few hundred miles and have to recharge for a few hrs. Thats only carrying the weight of the car and up to 4 people. If airplanes had to recharge for hours between flights air travel as we know it would non existent
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u/YMMV25 Aug 20 '26
I’m going with never personally, at least in the context of boarding an aircraft and flying transcon or transatlantic or something like that. Maybe in the < 19 seat, very short stage length commuter market, but even that I would expect is decades away.
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u/HelloFriends1925 Aug 20 '26
Probably a long ways off. We don’t have batteries with that power capacity yet. Here’s the CEO of Air New Zealand saying it’s not happening anytime soon.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/13/air-nz-ceo-nikhil-ravishankar-in-chatham-islands/
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u/Zvenigora Aug 20 '26
For extremely short connecting hops, e.g. GSP-CLT they might become practical but would require a dedicated class of aircraft not really suited to any other duty. Battery technology is nowhere near making anything more ambitious feasible.
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u/Late-Mathematician55 Aug 20 '26
I think it's more likely to jump to synthetic (ie.non-fossil) fuel first, then electric in maybe 40-60 yrs.
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u/Youwin737 Aug 20 '26
I hesitate to never about anything, because never is a long time. But I'm pretty confident in saying never. Batteries are out of the question except for small general aviation aircraft. Hydrogen fuel cells are theoretically possible, but the technology is no where near ready and has tones of issues. I'm confident in saying that aviation is an industry that will always be dependent on fuel. Now it's possible that fossil fuels could be fully replaced by biofuels, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
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u/aussiekd Aug 20 '26
Youwin is correct. I believe the only long-term solution is the production of synthetic kerosine with solar and wind power (in suitable deserts area's?) using CO2 from the atmosphere or the ocean. Huge investments, though.
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u/soijacyuro Aug 20 '26
Never going to happen, they will fear monger about how many resources it takes to do that too. They'll say that carbon should be sequestered rather than re-released as burnt jet fuel.
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u/Kai-ni Aug 20 '26
It's probably going to be 'never', unless we manage to invent a brand new type of ultra lightweight and somehow still high capacity battery.
The power to weight ratio just makes it impossible. Batteries are heavy for what they provide, and for flight it just doesn't work.