Air travel is easily one of the most significant forms of travel. Despite land and sea travel preceding it by thousands of years, the world would have never become as global as it is today without it. 

Air travel is not really environmentally-friendly, though. Not only is jet fuel expensive, but it’s also a huge source of pollution. 

Therefore, a few startups are rolling up their sleeves to make changes in the aviation industry. These startups are working on electric airplanes to make air travel a more economically-viable and environmentally-friendly enterprise. Let’s take a look at what they’re building below. 

Faradair

source: Faradair

Faradair’s new BEHA-M1H is “the world’s most environmental plane” as their website says. This startup located in England has the ambition of developing hybrid airplanes by 2025 and selling them by 2027. 

To show the strength of their commitment and expertise, they have an impressive list of engineering partners like Dunlop and they’ve hired former executives from companies like Boeing and easyJet.

Faradair’s Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft (BEHA) will have noteworthy features going for it once it takes off. They include:

• A triple box wing which will allow for a short take-off and landing time with 18 passengers
• Hybrid electric engineering which would result in incredibly quiet flights with a carbon neutral footprint 
• A lightweight composition that will enable flights of up to 1,150 miles

Wright

source: Wright

Wright, located in the U.S., intends to provide quiet, one-hour flights with zero carbon emissions no later than 2026. They’re also hoping to eliminate all carbon emissions from flights under eight hundred miles. 

They are confident that their proprietary megawatt-class propulsion system can do the job, and the strength of that conviction seems to have attracted some high-powered backers including NASA, the U.S. Air Force, easyJet, the U.S. Army, The U.S. Department of Energy, Viva Aerobus, Honeywell, and Eaglepicher Technologies.

They plan to continue testing through 2023 and should launch Wright Spirit by 2026 if all goes according to plan.

Eviation

source: Eviation

This Israeli startup based in Seattle, Washington aims to reduce the environmental impact, noise pollution, and maintenance costs that are traditionally associated with air travel. Its vision is to redefine aviation completely by redefining regional travel.

In pursuit of this mission, the company has garnered a lot of attention and awards from all over the world for innovative engineering. They plan to start operations in 2024, and partners like DHL have already placed orders for electric airplane fleets!

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*featured image source: BBC News