Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

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mimico_polak said:
It’s a 2021.

My only concern is after warranty repairs as I understand only Tesla has the parts / service.
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We found Tesla was actually cheaper than some local mechanics who were Tesla certified for repairs. They also got the job done a lot faster and correct for a simple heating issue we had with one of our 3's. The certified shop did not hook the heater up correctly and charged 3x as much as Tesla. Still new to Tesla, we have only started our fleet about 8 months ago, so time will tell how good or bad Tesla is for service.
 
wonderings said:
We found Tesla was actually cheaper than some local mechanics who were Tesla certified for repairs. They also got the job done a lot faster and correct for a simple heating issue we had with one of our 3's. The certified shop did not hook the heater up correctly and charged 3x as much as Tesla. Still new to Tesla, we have only started our fleet about 8 months ago, so time will tell how good or bad Tesla is for service.
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Nice! Thanks for chiming in with real experience!

Looking forward to updates.

Buddy that bought the used 3 said he went to test the new 3 and is in love considering how much better it is overall than his 2021. He’s already jonesing to change after 2 months.
 
4 passenger + pilot and properly certified. Lots of uses for it - you might as well ditch helicopters to dismiss this.
and super cheap to fly.
$28 per hour ALIA VTOL energy cost vs. $311/hr Bell 407
84% less emissions ALIA VTOL vs. Bell 407
$18 per hour ALIA CTOL energy cost vs. $347/hr Cessna 208
75% less emissions ALIA CTOL vs. Cessna 208
336 nm range- 153 kts

Aircraft

BETA's all-electric ALIA VTOL and CTOL: The low-cost, high-performance solution for economically and environmentally sustainable operations. Designed by pilots for pilots.
beta.team beta.team
What's not to like .... it resolves the short hop issue for aviation.
en.wikipedia.org

Beta Technologies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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MacDoc said:
4 passenger + pilot and properly certified. Lots of uses for it - you might as well ditch helicopters to dismiss this.
and super cheap to fly.
$28 per hour ALIA VTOL energy cost vs. $311/hr Bell 407
84% less emissions ALIA VTOL vs. Bell 407
$18 per hour ALIA CTOL energy cost vs. $347/hr Cessna 208
75% less emissions ALIA CTOL vs. Cessna 208
336 nm range- 153 kts

Aircraft

BETA's all-electric ALIA VTOL and CTOL: The low-cost, high-performance solution for economically and environmentally sustainable operations. Designed by pilots for pilots.
beta.team beta.team
What's not to like .... it resolves the short hop issue for aviation.
en.wikipedia.org

Beta Technologies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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Targeted range, projected range, rounds of funding secured. Wank. Once it actually carries passengers for hours, I'm willing to cha.ge my opinion. As it is now, it is 7000 lbs and I expect real range will be an order of magnitude less than the marketing.
 
GreyGhost said:
Possibly ok for a flight school. For the vast majority of uses a giant wank using taxpayer funds.
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I to would like to see government money minimized in speculative technologies. The island airport could have a vested interest in E-planes due to constant pressure from nearby residents to shut the place down over noise issues, the reason jets aren't allowed other than emergency flights.

Nice. Give people subsidized housing on some of the most valuable property in North America and they complain about noise they knew was going to be there when they signed up.

The true unsubsidized E-plane price wasn't mentioned but a Cessna 208 would start at about $3 million CDN and could go double fully loaded. I don't know if they are comparable aircraft. A 182 might be closer.

Longevity and repairs to composites has yet to be determined. DC-3s production ended in 1942 but ~150 are still flying 80+ years later. Composites tend to weaken over time. Aluminum is aluminum and can be patched panel by panel.

Maximum altitude would be interesting as engine output wouldn't be affected by thin air. Lift / drag would be a factor.
 
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Hard to imagine any commercial planes using electric just based on the weight. I have lived my dream of having a car that drives for me, I am now ready to look forward to my next dream of a simple and easy flying machine to go to and from work. I live and work rurally, about an hours drive everyday through the countryside which I love. The only thing I would love more would be to soar just over the tree tops and farms to work... I wonder if these will be something a little more common in the next 10 years.

This is what I would love, after range is increased significantly a little bit of storage area. I swear after I have this I will be happy!
jetson.com

Home | Jetson - Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

Your personal aircraft in aluminium and carbon fibre, powered with eight powerful electric motors.
jetson.com jetson.com

Price is steep, but hoping in time this is going to come down quite a bit.

 
wonderings said:
Hard to imagine any commercial planes using electric just based on the weight. I have lived my dream of having a car that drives for me, I am now ready to look forward to my next dream of a simple and easy flying machine to go to and from work. I live and work rurally, about an hours drive everyday through the countryside which I love. The only thing I would love more would be to soar just over the tree tops and farms to work... I wonder if these will be something a little more common in the next 10 years.

This is what I would love, after range is increased significantly a little bit of storage area. I swear after I have this I will be happy!
jetson.com

Home | Jetson - Personal Electric Aerial Vehicle

Your personal aircraft in aluminium and carbon fibre, powered with eight powerful electric motors.
jetson.com jetson.com

Price is steep, but hoping in time this is going to come down quite a bit.

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PIvotal Helix is similar. Cool idea and has a real probability to deliver on it's promises. $190k USD for 64 km range. Classed as ultralight so you don't need a full PPL in the USA. If they ever became remotely popular, I expect regulation would change quickly to restrict them. It's one thing to fly your ultralight from an airport over some farms, it's a very different thing to take off from the roof of your condo to commute to work downtown.
 
MacDoc said:
4 passenger + pilot and properly certified. Lots of uses for it - you might as well ditch helicopters to dismiss this.
and super cheap to fly.
$28 per hour ALIA VTOL energy cost vs. $311/hr Bell 407
84% less emissions ALIA VTOL vs. Bell 407
$18 per hour ALIA CTOL energy cost vs. $347/hr Cessna 208
75% less emissions ALIA CTOL vs. Cessna 208
336 nm range- 153 kts

Aircraft

BETA's all-electric ALIA VTOL and CTOL: The low-cost, high-performance solution for economically and environmentally sustainable operations. Designed by pilots for pilots.
beta.team beta.team
What's not to like .... it resolves the short hop issue for aviation.
en.wikipedia.org

Beta Technologies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
Cessna 208? Really?
 
Wingboy said:
Cessna 208? Really?
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Well if you want your fantasy number to look better, comparing your 4 pax plane to a 13 pax plane makes the costs look more rosy. Most people drinking the kool-aid won't pick up on the stupidity of that comparison. A 206 would be a much better comparison with but then fuel would be ~$100/hr instead of their stated $347.
 
Actual flight info
The aircraft—tail number N916LF, the first to be rolled off Beta’s scaled production line in Burlington, Vermont last year—recently returned to Plattsburgh International Airport (KPBG) after visiting more than 20 states and 82 municipal, state, and military airfields. The journey took the CX300 from Plattsburgh to Santa Monica, California, and back, flying over the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, the mountainous Continental Divide, Midtown Manhattan, and other iconic landmarks.

The aircraft completed up to four flights per day, Beta said. It is designed for a pilot and up to five passengers, with a top cruise speed of 135 knots and demonstrated range of 336 nm, per the company’s website. Beta claims the CX300 will produce 75 percent less emissions than a Cessna 208 Caravan at a fraction of the energy cost per hour.
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www.flyingmag.com

Electric Aircraft Completes 6-Week, 22-State Cross-Country Journey

Beta’s CX300 flies from the manufacturer’s flight test center in New York to California and back again.
www.flyingmag.com www.flyingmag.com

1755775049044.png
China has certified the world’s first electric aircraft for commercial flight, according to the operator of the model.

The RX4E—a four-passenger, battery-electric design developed by Rhyxeon General Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of Liaoning General Aviation Academy in China—received type certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), per a social media post by operating partner Volar Air Mobility.
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Rhyxeon, the manufacturer of the RX4E, first flew the aircraft with Liaoning in 2019. According to its website, the design has a range of about 186 sm (162 nm) and flight endurance of 1.5 hours, cruising around 137 mph (120 knots) with a payload of about 680 pounds. Hooi said its batteries can be swapped out in about 10 minutes.
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GreyGhost said:
Another video of "autopilot" trying to kill to people. Thankfully, in this case it would just have been a tesla owner.

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770K views · 59K reactions | @teslamotors what is going on?? 🙄 | Florida Street Scene

@teslamotors what is going on?? 🙄.
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
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Autopilot can definitely do some wonky things like that, it is super rare though. The systems in place also keep you watching and attentive. It has a camera watching your face and must have eye tracking. If I look down at my phone and do something it will quickly tell me to be attentive. If I ignore that eventually auto pilot will just not work anymore. If it is early morning or late night where it is dark and you are driving rurally and the camera cannot see your face or eyes it regularly warns you on the screen and asks you to squeeze the steering wheel or turn it slightly so it knows you are paying attention. Again if you ignore this you will quickly find auto pilot does not work.
 
MacDoc said:
Actual flight info

www.flyingmag.com

Electric Aircraft Completes 6-Week, 22-State Cross-Country Journey

Beta’s CX300 flies from the manufacturer’s flight test center in New York to California and back again.
www.flyingmag.com www.flyingmag.com

View attachment 75594
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They keep comparing it to a 208. That alone shows you they are completely uninterested in reality. They are not remotely similar in any way. My buddies 180 is cheaper to fly than a PC12 but so what? That is the expected result from a bad comparison.

Range is easy to play games with. Put in just the pilot and fly with a huge tailwind (or if you really want to play games, add ferry batteries as cargo). To be useful data you need the plane at max gross and fly out and back. On the long trip, they averaged 150 NM a leg and then said that proves a 336nm range. Holy leap batman. That's the guess-o-meter value and often unrelated to reality. There was no affirmative statement on how much weight was in the plane nor whether the plane was stock. The marketing people are firmly in command and trying to attract the kool-aid crowd willing to blindly accept their drivel.

As for the Rhyxeon/RX4E, their website is gone. Was it real or was it propaganda? Lots of press releases about how awesome it was and how far ahead china is.

There are electric planes in use at some flight schools. They work well for that application as most flights are <1 hour followed by some ground time (either battery swap or DC fast charge to turn them reasonably quickly). On a given day, they need more ground time than a conventional trainer but it may work out over longer time periods as theoretically, they need less time in the shop. Pipistrel Electro is common for this application. 50 min flight time, 80 min charge time. ~$200K USD which is way cheaper than most other trainer planes (although it is pretty small). Hourly costs are 60-80 USD per hour so not far off a conventional trainer.

EDIT:
Cessna 208
Caravan-Spec.jpg


CX300
Only wingspan of 50 ft easily available. Interior volume of 200 cu ft (1/2 of 208 they chose as a comparison plane).
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