Israeli All-Electric Plane Ushers in New Age of Aviation

Two years after unveiling a prototype for the first known all-electric airplane at the Paris Air Show in 2019, Israeli company Eviation is preparing for the plane’s first test flight to usher in a new age of aviation.

The test flight for the aircraft, dubbed Alice, is expected before the end of the year with the plane — now in its fifth iteration — in final assembly at Eviation headquarters in Arlington, Washington, just north of Seattle.

This test flight puts Alice on a path toward approval by regulators and then, hopefully, service entry in 2024. The company is making three more planes for a total of four aircraft to accelerate certification.

Alice is designed to accommodate nine passengers and two crew members. Once operational, it will make regional trips as accessible as a train ride, but at a lower cost and with better service. With a payload of 2,500 pounds (1.1 tons) and a range of 506 miles (815 kilometers), Alice would be available for passengers to book a ride by an app for popular short-haul routes — for example, San Jose to San Diego, London to Prague, and Paris to Toulouse. 

The aircraft’s lithium-ion battery would require 30 minutes or less to charge per flight hour, as its mission is to make electric, zero-emission aviation a competitive, sustainable answer to on-demand mobility.

Eviation snagged its first client, Massachusetts-based regional airline Cape Air, in 2019 just as it unveiled its Alice prototype. Cape Air, which operates 95 fleets in some two dozen cities throughout the US and the Caribbean, placed an order for 92 Alice aircraft priced at $4 million each. Eviation then announced that two well-known but not-yet-disclosed American companies had also placed orders for the Alice, which now topped 150.

Last month, Eviation revealed that global logistics and international shipping giant DHL had placed an order for 12 Alice aircraft in cargo configuration, the Alice eCargo, to set up an electric DHL Express network for a pioneering step into a sustainable aviation future. Eviation provides a credible operational solution for cargo operations; Alice can be charged while loading and unloading for maximum use on short hauls.

Alice has low maintenance and operating costs, and it is expected that the aircraft will reduce carrier costs by up to 70 percent. A strong bonus is how much quieter electric planes are.

By the time the Alice planes go into service in 2024, pending all regulatory approval, electric aircraft fleets will be much more common because they don’t need as much infrastructure as electric cars.

Once there are final approvals, the rollout is expected to be rapid in the US, and then globally.

Eviation has attracted its fair share of attention in recent years, nabbing a spot on TIME magazine’s list of 100 “best inventions” two years ago (alongside eight other Israeli-founded companies), and winning a “World-Changing Ideas” Award in 2018 by US business magazine Fast Company. The company intends to remain a plane manufacturer and has no plans to become a fleet operator or a logistics provider.

Source: The Times of Israel

Israel Seeks to Tax Disposables to Reduce Plastic Use

In a serious bid to counter all the plastic littered everywhere, Israel intends to impose a steep purchase tax on plastic utensils. The expectation is that doing so will discourage their use and protect the environment.

Tamar Zandberg, Israel's environmental protection minister has emphatically stated that the plastic strewn everywhere has decreased the quality of life in Israel. The use of plastic, disposable utensils has doubled over the last decade, and the expectation is that introducing this tax will reduce usage by 40%.

The exact amount of tax to be imposed is still being decided, and the expectation is that it will go into effect in 2022.

Zandberg stressed that disposable plastic has had a terrible effect on the environment, taking thousands of years to break down, and needlessly filling landfills, as well as polluting the oceans.

Learn more about it here. 

Off to load my eco-friendly, reusable silverware and plates into the dishwasher, till next time!

J

Electric Road Pilot in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, in partnership with ElectReon and Dan Bus Company, has launched a pilot project to install wireless electric roads for charging public transportation in the city.

ElectReon is a pioneer in developing electric road technology, reducing the need for an expensive and heavy battery, minimizing the need to establish charging and gas stations across the city, and enabling unlimited journey times (when traveling along the necessary infrastructure).

The company recently announced the completion of initial testing of an electric road system, and presented for the first time an electric vehicle traveling continuously along a 25-meter section within the company's experimental complex in Beit Yanai, to the satisfaction of the system's developers.

The pilot, the first of its kind in Israel, will be carried out between Tel Aviv University Railway Station and Klatzkin Terminal in Ramat Aviv – a two-kilometer route including 600 meters of electric road. It will enable electric buses capable of being charged directly from under-road electric infrastructure to travel on the route serving passengers traveling to and from Tel Aviv University. 

The municipal policy of Tel Aviv-Yafo attaches great importance to electric vehicles reducing air pollution and noise in the city. The construction of electric roads will encourage energy-independent public transportation and promote the adoption of innovative initiatives and technologies in various other fields.

The construction of an electric road to charge public transportation vehicles while traveling will make Tel Aviv-Yafo the first city worldwide to roll out this technology on a wide scale. In doing so, the city will evaluate the viability of adding distribution trucks, as well as private and autonomous vehicles.

Constructing electric roads in Tel Aviv-Yafo will position the State of Israel as a global leader in the field.

If the pilot is successful, it may be expanded to additional locations in the city.

Transforming a road into an electrified surface and a means for charging, through advanced and effective infrastructure, will enable the acceleration of the transition to electric buses. Relying on direct charging of vehicles from the road itself will remove the need to establish charging stations or be operationally bound to terminals.

Source: New-Tech Europe