[saosebastiao]

I get it, fuel costs are huge for airlines. But fuel costs are still small beans compared to capital utilization. I hope they have a feasible plan for recharging and getting back in the air without significant delays. That is a very significant amount of energy to shove into a plane in such a timeframe. If recharge times are anywhere close to an hour, this idea is DOA.

[jcoffland]

You could swap batteries.

[saosebastiao]

That does seem to be the current model for fast recharges. It's not out of the question, but these are going to be extremely big batteries and the planes, batteries, and auxiliary equipment need to be designed for it up front. The thing with planes is that design is extremely expensive and design costs are expected to be amortized over a long lifecycle, which means that a technical constraint today could end up being very costly if the constraint goes away in the near future.

Wright Electric likely knows all this and is working on it...a partnership with a low cost airline would surely inform them of what is needed for success. I'm just complaining that the article is not very substantive.

[jcoffland]

You are right. Weight distribution would be an important factor so you cannot just swap out a big block of battery on one end of the plane. Perhaps a long tube running down the plane. You push charged batteries in one end and pull discharged ones out the other. The track they run on connects them to the electrical system.