Propulsion

Battery electric vehicle

Green vehicle

Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent

Electrical engineering

Physics

Engineering

Aerospace engineering

Electrically powered spacecraft propulsion

Power (physics)

Automotive engineering

Ecology

Range (aeronautics)

Electricity

Environmental science

Electricity generation

Fuel efficiency

Greenhouse gas

Battery (electricity)

Quantum mechanics

Aviation

Biology

Nature Energy

Ever since the Wright brothers’ first powered flight in 1903, commercial aircraft have relied on liquid hydrocarbon fuels. However, the need for greenhouse gas emission reductions along with recent progress in battery technology for automobiles has generated strong interest in electric propulsion in aviation. This Analysis provides a first-order assessment of the energy, economic and environmental implications of all-electric aircraft. We show that batteries with significantly higher specific energy and lower cost, coupled with further reductions of costs and CO2 intensity of electricity, are necessary for exploiting the full range of economic and environmental benefits provided by all-electric aircraft. A global fleet of all-electric aircraft serving all flights up to a distance of 400–600 nautical miles (741–1,111 km) would demand an equivalent of 0.6–1.7% of worldwide electricity consumption in 2015. Although lifecycle CO2 emissions of all-electric aircraft depend on the power generation mix, all direct combustion emissions and thus direct air pollutants and direct non-CO2 warming impacts would be eliminated. Electric aircraft offer an aviation decarbonization pathway and attract increasing attention owing to the rapid development of batteries. Here Andreas Schäfer and colleagues analyse the potential technological, economic and environmental viability of battery-electric commercial aircraft.

Technological, economic and environmental prospects of all-electric aircraft