[nether]

Electric aircraft can recharge in flight from the sun. This will mostly be long endurance, high altitude utility aircraft, like Facebook/Titan Aerospace's wifi UAV or surveillance drones that can stay airborne indefinitely. These aircraft can be pseudo satellites without requiring a rocket launch. They must be extremely low in drag and weight efficient, with powerplant weight being a major issue because previously large electric motors have not had application in aerospace and have not been weight optimized as gas turbines have. Siemens has seen the growing market (QinetiQ Zephyr for another example) and is responding to it. We definitely won't be seeing any passenger aircraft electrically propelled anytime soon.

[glabifrons]

The article specifically mentions using this motor for hybrid passenger aircraft (which is what my post addressed). I mentioned nothing about UAVs or solar power (which is only possible with an enormous wing/fuselage ratio).

FTA: "This innovation will make it possible to build series hybrid-electric aircraft with four or more seats," said Frank Anton, Head of eAircraft at Siemens Corporate Technology

[rasz_pl]

This is 200KW motor, you might want to check the size of 200KW solar installation.