Rolls-Royce joins race to develop electric passenger jets

A partly British-built hybrid electric plane could be flying by 2020 as the result of a collaboration between Airbus, Siemens and Rolls-Royce. The manufacturers will convert a short-haul passenger jet, paving the way to making commercial air travel running partly on electricity a reality. Engineers involved in the E-Fan X project said the technology could mean cleaner, quieter and cheaper journeys. They also raised the prospect of radically changing aircraft and airport design, allowing air travel to supplant rail for many more intercity journeys. The companies are in talks with the British government to partially fund the joint project, which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds. They aim to build an E-Fan X demonstration model based on a BAe 146 aircraft in which an electric unit, powered by an onboard generator, replaces one, and eventually two, of the plane’s four gas turbine engines. Airbus flew a single-seater electric plane, the E-Fan, across the Channel in 2015. The E-Fan X passenger jet will require more than 30 times the power, two megawatts, for a single electric engine. Mark Cousins, the head of flight demonstrators at Airbus, said: “We decided we needed to be more ambitious because the world and technology is moving so fast.” A number of airlines were interested, he said. “The objective is to reduce environmental impact and significantly reduce fuel burn.” Paul Stein, the Rolls-Royce chief technology officer, said: “Aviation has been the last frontier in the electrification of transport, and slow to catch up. This will be a new era of aviation.”<br/>