At Tesla’s Investor Day on March 1, the billionaire said it’s possible to have battery-powered ships and planes.
Elon Musk and his Tesla escort unveiled on March 1 the third part of Tesla’s “Master Plan”, or the mission that the billionaire assigns to the electric vehicle manufacturer to transform society towards a sustainable energy economy.
This plan obviously includes a complete transformation of the modes of transport. In the automobile, Tesla has already pushed the entire sector to develop electric vehicles, thus reducing polluting emissions.
The company has just revealed a new vehicle manufacturing platform aimed at cutting production costs by 50%. The goal is to offer low-cost vehicles to reach the masses who are still shying away from electric vehicles due to the often prohibitively high prices.
“All cars will become fully electric and autonomous,” Musk during the presentation.
The king of techno also seems to think that electric boats and planes are the new frontier. In any case, that’s what he suggested by including the ships and planes in his presentation to investors in a livestreamed event.
“A necessary piece of the pie is the sustainable supply of fuel to planes and ships,” Drew Baglino, Tesla’s senior vice president of powertrain and energy engineering, said on stage. “Shipping accounts for 3% of global CO2. It’s suitable for electrification, even with lithium-ion, phosphate. Long-distance ships can run entirely on batteries, so it’s a great opportunity to electrify.
He acknowledged that power density is a bit “more difficult” to have battery-powered aircraft “but the short haul is doable today.”
“With some improvements they will kick in for the long term, but even in the meantime, we can take advantage of sustainable aviation fuels produced and stored using excess renewable electricity. There is a lot of work in this space,” Musk said.
Musk then added that to get long-range battery-powered planes and ships, the ship and plane need to be redesigned.
“Just like with an electric car, you wouldn’t just take a gas car and put a battery in it. That’s very sub-optimal. It’s much more efficient to have the battery beat the structure of the car.” he told her, adding that “if that’s done with the plane, you can get long-range planes.”
Musk concluded that: “As we improve the energy density of batteries, you will see all transportation become fully electric, with the exception of rockets.”
The billionaire did not say whether Tesla would build battery-powered boats and planes or if they are just recommendations for plane makers.
