Rolls-Royce working to build all electric plane
Rolls-Royce announced in January that it is working to build the world’s fastest all electric plane. “This zero-emissions plane is expected to make a run for the record books with a target speed of 300mph or more,” the company said in a statement.
Rolls-Royce is building the plane in southwest England where engineers, designers, and data specialists from across Rolls-Royce hope to have the plane flying by 2020. The project is part of a Rolls-Royce initiative called ACCEL (Accelerating the Electrification of Flight) that is intended to pioneer a third wave of aviation. ACCEL is partly funded by the UK government and involves electric motor and controller manufacturer YASA and the aviation start-up Electroflight.
“ACCEL is nothing less than a revolutionary step change in aviation,” says Matheu Parr, manager of the ACCEL project for Rolls-Royce. “This plane will be powered by a state-of-the-art electrical system and the most powerful battery ever built for flight. In the year ahead, we’re going to demonstrate its abilities in demanding test environments before going for gold in 2020 from a landing strip on the Welsh coastline.”
