Why Boats and Planes Are Also Going Electric

• In today’s episode of Cold Fusion, we explore electric transportation.
• Discover the world's largest electric plane, the Hart X1 from Sweden.
• Learn about the innovative Wavefyer electric boat from Australia.
• Insights from Josh Portlock on the future of electric vehicles.
• Electric transportation aims to enhance regional connectivity and sustainability.

Hi, welcome to another episode of Cold Fusion.

We all know about electric cars, but what about the electrification of other modes of transport? In today’s episode, we’ll cover two breakthroughs in electric transportation: the world’s largest electric plane from Sweden and a neat little electric boat from Australia. To gain more insight into this topic, I’ll be sitting down with Josh Portck, an EM mechatronics and aerospace engineer and investor in electric transportation. So let’s get straight into it.

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Now, electric planes have been around for a while, but they’ve basically always been small and light aircraft. The problem with them is that they can’t travel too far. The further the distance, the larger the battery and the heavier the aircraft. A Swedish company by the name of HAR Aerospace is setting out to change all of that. The Swedish aviation company is to test the world's largest electric aircraft this year. Its name is the Hart X1. Unveiled back in September, it's an experimental platform for their planned production regional aircraft, the ES30.

The Hart X1 is a decent-sized bird. It’s got a wingspan of 32 metres or 105 ft. It can carry up to 30 people and has a range of 800 kilometres or 497 miles. But this maximum range is only reached when there are 25 or fewer passengers. For reference, the record for the furthest electric plane flight is 155 miles or 250 kilometers. That was achieved by the Chinese firm Gen4 Prosperities with their VTOL aircraft in 2023.

The previous record for an all-electric flight was extremely close, at 154.1 miles or 248 kilometers, by a Californian company, Joby Aviation, in 2021. So, how is the Hart X1 getting 800 kilometres? Because battery technology isn’t quite where it needs to be yet, the team decided to go for a hybrid approach. There’s a pair of turboprop engines installed on the outboard section of the wing and a pair of electric motors on the inboard section.

For shorter flights, the plane operates purely on electric power using two electric motors. The range on fully electric power is 200 kilometres or 124 miles after a 30-minute charge. Although shorter than current record holders, Hart Aerospace’s hybrid system can boost the range by a fair bit. As we covered, it can go up to 800 kilometres with 25 or fewer people.

But fully loaded with 30 passengers, the range is 400 km or 250 miles. Passengers can bring luggage weighing up to 25 kilos or 55 pounds. It is interesting because this setup is the best of both worlds and does provide some unique advantages. So, the benefits include cheaper operating costs. Also, electric motors deliver instant power, enabling take-offs from shorter runways as short as 1,100 metres or 3,600 ft.

Moreover, this new electric aircraft is noticeably quieter than traditional planes. That may not all sound like much, but in an economic context, this allows the aircraft to operate from smaller airports while carrying more people than ever before in an electric plane. Ultimately, this could enhance regional connectivity. The final ES30 plane could serve smaller communities and possibly benefit tourism.

It’s similar to when America first built highways; making it easier and cheaper to travel further distances helped regional towns grow. So it’s really an aircraft for short sectors, regional flying. Over the years, airlines have kind of lost interest in this market segment because existing airplanes are very expensive to operate. As a result, they moved into larger airplanes searching for lower costs and dropped services from regional airports.

We pitched this aircraft basically to airlines that have an interest in reopening those regional routes, something they cannot do with existing airplanes in the market. With my interview with Josh Portlock, he somewhat disagrees that this is the best engineering arrangement.

“If it’s two hours or less, you may as well just put a big battery in, and by taking the engine out, you save all those costs, weight, complexity, maintenance issues, and reliability issues. A bigger battery means the battery's not being abused as much. So, batteries in hybrids are being abused; that’s the general way to explain it. Now, they often go for more expensive chemistries. Because of that, they need to last longer and they need to cope with a lot more abuse. So, that's one downside with hybridization. If you go all battery, you have a big battery that's being sipped like the electrons are being sipped out of it, and they’re comfortable. They’re not being thrashed.”

So, that’s my general view on hybrids. It’s even more extreme in aviation because weight sensitivity is so critical. You really don’t want the weight of other things converting energy; you want the purest form of energy storage going straight from battery to electric motors.

Here’s the production plan. Just like NASA did in the 1960s with their X series of experimental planes, Hart Aerospace aims to gather valuable data from testing. They want to perfect the final design of the ES30. The first fully electric maiden flight of the Hart X1 is scheduled for Q1 or Q2 of 2025.

They’ve already finished testing ground procedures and the evaluation of the charging process. HAR Aerospace received a $4.1 million grant by the FAA to develop their propulsion technology. They now have a research and development hub in California. Malaysian carrier Air Asia has become the latest airline to join HAR’s Industry Advisory Board, providing input into prospective operations and the development of the ES30.

Hart Aerospace says it now has over 250 orders for the plane. They say they’re not looking to replace major airlines but instead focus on connecting smaller pocket airports - those airports in underserved communities with roughly 2 acres of land. Following the Hart X1, Hart Aerospace will develop the Hart X2, a pre-production prototype. Incorporating improvements learned from the X1’s testing, Hart Aerospace aims to bring the ES30 into commercial service by 2028.

If you can’t wait that long to experience the Hart X1, you can actually fly it right now in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

And now, from the air to the sea! Much like the Hart X1 was a prototype for the ES30, the Wavefyer is a prototype for an electric boat. And it has a trick up its sleeve; it’s a hydrofoiling electric boat. Judging by the initial reactions, people absolutely love it. This clip on TikTok gained over 2.4 million views in a day.

The company that made it is called Electronautic, and they're based in Perth, Australia. The Wayfyer may look like a standard two-seater boat at first glance, but what makes it different from other boats is that, when in motion, it lifts above the water to travel. The hydrofoiling system is key to making this happen. It drastically reduces drag and increases efficiency.

Unlike traditional boats that push through the waves when in motion, the Wayfyer's hull makes no contact with the water. So, some of you must be thinking, wouldn’t this be super unstable? Well, of course, this was a major design problem, but it’s been worked through, and frankly, the solution is pretty cool engineering-wise.

It’s called Wave drive. It’s an advanced control system that automatically adjusts the hydrofoil position in real time, ensuring maximum stability and efficiency even in choppy water. The Wave drive is a patented propulsion system developed over the last four years. It features twin thrusters; so it’s got left and right thruster electric motors, direct drives, so no gearboxes, no shafts, and no complexity like you normally have with engines at the top out of the water. All that shaft and gearbox complexity is immersed in water, thus it has built-in liquid cooling - so you don’t need complex cooling circuits.

You couldn’t think of a simpler, more power-dense motor than a direct drive motor that's directly driving the propeller and is immersed in water. That’s the start of the Wave drive twin motors with the control surfaces in the tubes; the wings end up being end-capped. The best way to explain that is, you know how commercial airliners have wingtips? That design is to reduce the amount of turbulence that comes off the wingtip.

When you have tubes at the end, it’s even better. The full span of the wing is getting efficient lift instead of the tips usually getting all these losses. Any lift generated swells around the tube and then goes into the propeller. So, it actually gets more efficiently converted back into thrust.

This is the last key bit of secret sauce that we’re very confident we’ve patented and we have a good motor around; no one’s done an anhedral tail at the back of a hydrofoil system. Conventionally, aircraft and hydrofoil crafts have wings that point up, called dihedral. Dihedral is designed to self-stabilize conventional legacy aviation and even hydrofoil systems.

You want something self-stabilizing. Actually, if we make it unstable and then actively stabilize it, we have much more control over it. At the tail, we can actively stabilize and dampen out the stability of the craft much more aggressively than others. You can collectively produce lift, differentially produce pitch movement forward and back, differentially produce roll movement, and even diagonally produce your movements.

So, why does this matter? A boat floating on top of the water might sound pretty cool, but there’s actually more to it when you look at the numbers. Compared to a normal boat that pushes its hull through the water, this method uses 80% less energy. Obviously, that’s far less power than traditional boats, but this alone allows the craft to be much faster and have a much longer range than other electric boats.

And of course, outboard diesel engines produce a lot of emissions, so being 100% electric puts an end to that. The ride is also smoother, and the craft is virtually silent. Electronautic believes that these methods could make electric boats the go-to solution for clean and efficient travel over the water.

So, there you have it, a closer look at two specific electric vehicles that aren’t electric cars. As battery technology improves, we can all hope to see more of these efforts as time goes on. I’m all for it; I'm pretty passionate about this and can’t wait to see what the future brings.

Just some quick housekeeping before I go. I’ll be at the Everything Electric show in Sydney on the 9th of March. I’ll be on stage having a fun talk about battery technology and other things with Robert Llewelln, the founder of Fully Charged. I’ll leave a link for tickets below and you can use the code Cold Fusion to get 20% off.

There’s going to be plenty of other talks at the event, an expo of all things electric, and there will even be an opportunity to test drive some of the latest EVs. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Anyways, thanks for watching. My name is Degogo and you’ve been watching Cold Fusion. I’ll see you again soon for the next episode. Cheers, guys. Have a good one!