This aircraft called Alice is the electric plane manufactured by the company Eviation , and can transform regional transport thanks to its low cost and its commitment to the environment.
Alice will be able to transport up to 9 passengers , and fly a distance of 1,000 kilometers , this being a key point in the regional transport since it is a great distance that the rest of electric aircrafts do not cover.
At the conference of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association held in Brisbane, business development leader Ron Hoffman explained that both the maintenance and the cost of energy of Alice’s emission-free engine is 30% of that of conventional aircraft , which have an expense of about 270 euros for each hour of flight in fuel and another 180 euros in maintenance for each hour of flight.
Thus, flying on this aircraft could be much cheaper for both customers and the airline. “The price will be comparable to that of a train and faster than driving for hours in a car. The most interesting thing is that there is a bigger and new network that had never been dreamed before as commercially viable “ , explained Hoffman.
The main feature that differentiates Alice from other electric aircraft that are being built is that she can fly for a longer time because she has a power pack of 900 kWh of Li-ion, and this allows her to make a longer flight unlike of other aircraft such as Kitty Hawk’s Cora , which can only fly 100 km.
That is why Hoffman believes that with the distance of 1,000 km that Alice can make, “new connections and new networks” will be made between cities in the same region.
Also, since Alice’s engine does not make noise, flights can be made at night. The first batch of these aircraft is already being manufactured in France, and Eviation aims to present Alice next year at the Paris Air Show.
Thus, Alice will be the new clean and cheap transport can transform regional transport to usher in a new era of environmentally friendly electric aircraft.
