China's COMAC wants to build an electric passenger aircraft
BEIJING - On July 19th, COMAC, CATL, and Shanghai Jiaotong University jointly established a joint venture named COMAC CATL Aviation Co., Ltd. According to the business registration information, COMAC CATL Aviation Co., Ltd. has a registered capital of 600 million yuan ($83 million) in the Lingang Area of Shanghai, Su Wu reports for Simple Flying. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
25 July 2023 - Wu writes that "the establishment of the new joint venture company is aimed at a pre-research project for an electric aircraft to develop a fixed-wing electric aircraft. However, this project is still in the initial pre-research stage at the COMAC Beijing Research Center and is a long way from production."
Partner CATL, which produces batteries for electric vehicles, released a new generation of power storage, which it dubbed "solid state batteries" in April, which Wu notes has an energy density of 500Wh/kg., which is higher than which is the figure Tesla's Elon Musk says is the feasibility point for passenger aircraft [450Wh/kg].
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Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics