The promise of energy-efficient battery-powered urban aircraft

Abstract

Improvements in rechargeable batteries are enabling several electric urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft designs with up to 300 miles of range with payload equivalents of up to 7 passengers. We find that novel UAM aircraft consume between 130 Wh/passenger-mile up to ~1,200 Wh/passenger-mile depending on the design and utilization, relative to an expected consumption of over 220 Wh/passenger-mi for terrestrial electric vehicles and 1,000 Wh/passenger-mile for combustion engine vehicles. We also find that several UAM aircraft designs are approaching technological viability with current Li-ion batteries, based on the specific power-and-energy while rechargeability and lifetime performance remain uncertain. These aspects highlight the technological readiness of a new segment of transportation.