The First Electric Passenger Aircraft Could Be 50-Year-Old Canadian Seaplanes

The first battery-electric passenger planes in commercial service may turn out to be Canadian turboprops that date back to the 1950s and 1960s.

MagniX, a Redmond, Wash.-based company developing electric aircraft engines, has struck a deal with Harbour Air to be MagniX’s launch customer, aiming to convert the Vancouver-based airline’s 42 seaplanes into an all-electric fleet, the companies announced Tuesday.

They aim to begin flight tests late this year with a six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver fitted out with a 750-horsepower MagniX engine and battery cells with a capacity of 200 watt-hours per kilogram.

The plane will have 30 minutes of flight time with 30 minutes of power in reserve, MagniX CEO Roei Ganzarski told Forbes. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than enough for the unique route network that Harbour’s seaplanes serve, connecting Vancouver with island communities in British Columbia, as well as cross-border to Seattle. About 70% of the 30,000 flights Harbour flies in a year are a half hour or less.

"The Beaver is a perfect example of where all-electric can provide value today as opposed to waiting years before batteries reach greater ranges," says Ganzarski.

MagniX is aiming to win certification for its engine and approval to modify the Beaver from U.S. and Canadian aviation authorities by 2021, allowing Harbour to begin converting its 9 other Beavers and launch electric service in 2022. By then, Ganzarski expects battery power densities to have improved enough to enable Harbour Air to fly full passenger loads with at least 45 minutes of flight time and 30 minutes of reserve power.  

Electric propulsion promises lower operating costs and better performance, but the conventional wisdom is that batteries currently don’t pack enough power for their weight to produce an all-electric aircraft with much carrying capacity or range. The German conglomerate Siemens is also developing an electric aircraft engine, but it’s focused on perfecting a hybrid system with a small gas turbine as a more practical near-term approach.

MagniX, which was founded in Australia 10 years ago and is owned by Singapore-based billionaire Richard Chandler, is betting that there’s a viable market for all-electric propulsion systems now in 6- to 20-passenger and cargo planes that fly short routes like the Beaver, Cessna Caravan and Beechcraft King Air, either as replacements for existing planes’ turbine engines or new-build models optimized for electric flight.  

Ganzarski points out that of the 45 million flights airlines completed worldwide in 2018, roughly 5% were under 100 miles. "That market exists," says Ganzarski. "The key is to find the operators that understand the value that electric can bring to them."

Harbour Air’s fleet of Beaver aircraft and its larger twin and single-engine Otter seaplanes are rugged aircraft built by de Havilland Canada to serve as bush planes, capable of taking off and landing in tight spaces. Most of Harbour's planes were produced in the 1950s and 1960s, but the aircraft have been extensively refurbished over the years — Harbour’s founder and CEO, Greg McDougall, says the only original part on most of them is the plate with its serial number.

The companies will replace the Beaver’s fuel tanks with battery cells and stuff more in the nose in space vacated by the heavier, larger Pratt & Whitney PT6 engine, the standard engine on many small passenger and cargo planes.

McDougall says retrofitting the planes to electric propulsion should cost roughly as much as the $200,000 to $300,000 he shells out to overhaul their PT6 engines every two to three years after they reach 2,500 to 3,000 hours of flight time.

MagniX expects its engines to last 10,000 hours, with much less maintenance.

Ganzarski says going electric should improve operating costs by 40% to 60%. Fuel costs for a 100-mile flight for a plane like the Beaver can run $300 to $400; the equivalent amount of electricity costs about $12, he says.

Harbour Air is the first and only airline to become fully carbon neutral — McDougall says that its short routes enable it to add a modest amount to its ticket price to fund carbon offsets.

In addition to making the airline more environmentally friendly, McDougall says going electric will improve the airline’s relationship with the residents of the towers on Vancouver’s harbor that its planes take off and land near, reducing noise and emission of pollutants.  

Lower costs could allow Harbour to operate lighter-booked flights and to lower ticket prices.

For every hour of flight, MagniX says it will take from 45 minutes to an hour to recharge the plane.

That's a lot longer than it takes to top off a fuel tank, skeptics point out, potentially reducing the number of flights a plane can make in a day, and how quickly batteries will degrade in heavy use is an unknown.

Ganzarski says he expects to announce a deal with a manufacturer designing an all-new electric aircraft later this year.

MagniX's owner, Richard Chandler, earlier this year bought control of Eviation, an Israeli startup developing a nine-passenger battery-electric plane. It struck a deal in February to source engines from Siemens.