The Alice is the world's first full-sized, all-electric passenger plane, developed by the Israeli aeronautics company Aviation. The plane was designed to be a sustainable alternative to traditional air travel, which is one of the fastest-growing contributors to climate change. Alice is a nine-passenger, two-crew all-electric commuter aircraft, built from the ground up to be electric, not a conversion of anything.
The plane is built to fly up to 650 miles on just one charge of its lithium-ion battery, and it's designed to carry passengers at cruising speeds of about 276 miles per hour. It's a solution for popular commuter routes, such as New York City to DC or the West Coast.
However, building Alice presented several challenges. The plane has a large battery, weighing roughly 3.6 metric tons, which is a significant issue for a plane. The larger the battery, the more power the plane needs to get in the air. To overcome this, engineers distributed the battery throughout the plane, under the floor, in the wings, and in the fuselage. The plane also has a lightweight airframe, slim wings, wingtip propellers, and a lifting body, all of which were built to create a more efficient airframe at cruise.
Alice also has a unique lift-to-drag ratio of 25 to 1, making it more aerodynamically efficient and using less energy to get into the air. For future passengers, this environmentally conscious innovation means a lot less traveler's guilt.
Despite some testing hiccups in early January, Omer estimates the plane will be certified by 2022. US-based airline Cape Air has already decided to buy the aircraft at $4 million per plane and plans to introduce Alice into its fleet, serving regional routes from Boston to Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and up into New Hampshire and New York.
1. Alice is the world's first full-sized, all-electric passenger plane.
2. Alice is a nine-passenger, two-crew all-electric commuter aircraft.
3. Alice is built from the ground up to be electric and is not a conversion of anything.
4. The Israeli aeronautics company Aviation started work on Alice back in 2015.
5. Alice debuted the plane in June 2019.
6. Alice is designed to fly up to 650 miles on just one charge of its lithium-ion battery.
7. Alice is designed to carry passengers at cruising speeds of about 276 miles per hour.
8. Alice is built to fly up to 650 miles on just one charge of its lithium-ion battery.
9. Alice is designed to carry passengers at cruising speeds of about 276 miles per hour.
10. Alice is roughly 60% of maximum takeoff weight, meaning 60% of the plane when it takes off is battery.
11. Alice has a lightweight airframe, slim wings, and wingtip propellers.
12. Alice has a lift to drag ratio of 25 to 1, making it more aerodynamically efficient.
13. Alice is designed to be less noisy, about two orders of magnitude less noisy than an equivalently sized aircraft.
14. Omer estimates the plane will be certified by 2022.
15. US-based airline Cape Air has already decided to buy the aircraft at $4 million per plane.
16. Cape Air plans to introduce Alice into its fleet, serving regional routes from Boston to Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and up into New Hampshire and New York.
17. The industry is beginning to notice that there is really a tectonic shift towards electric planes.