Elon Inspired This Company To Build An Electric Plane

Summary

The guest, an electric aircraft founder, explains how Elon Musk's 12-year-old MIT AeroAstro talk set a battery energy density threshold of 400 Wh/kg for electric regional and continental flight. He says the industry has now reached that threshold, after conventional jet engines hit a dead end. As a result, he believes electric and hybrid-electric aircraft will revolutionize aviation, starting with regional and continental routes rather than transatlantic flights.

• The speaker says he was working on jet engines and saw the field hitting a dead end.
• He recalls Elon Musk's MIT AeroAstro speech 12 years ago about electric planes.
• Musk calculated that electric flight starts to make sense at 400 Wh/kg gravimetric energy density.
• The speaker says the industry is now at that 400 Wh/kg threshold.
• Electric and hybrid-electric aircraft are expected to work first for regional and continental flights, not ocean-crossing routes.
• The broad investment implication is bullish for electric and hybrid-electric aircraft.