An electric plane has crash-landed into a lake in Norway earlier this week in another blow to the current effort to electrify flight. Expand
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SunPower isn’t just powering roofs and solar farms these days. The company, which touts its solar panels as the most durable and efficient on the market, is looking at other applications. I’d be hard pressed to find one as awesome as the upcoming Mission SolarStratos expedition which will be powered by its 22-24% efficient Maxeon™ solar cells. Expand
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Norway has been leading the world for electric car adoption for years now. In December, EVs represented over 50% of new car sales – something that no other country can come close to at this point.
But now they have the ambition to also move to electric flight with a new goal to have all short-haul flights be all-electric by 2040. Expand
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Battery-powered air travel is not currently commercially viable simply because the energy storage capacity of batteries has yet to compensate for their heavy weight. A lot of companies are eyeing the possibility as energy density is improving and we have seen some progress with Airbus’’ E-Fan being the first electric plane to successfully fly across the English Channel.
Now a new startup is trying the more ambitious goal of building a battery-powered 150-seat plane to compete with 737-size aircrafts in the market for short-haul trips (under 300 miles). Expand
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