That's a baby ekranoplane how cute.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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What kind of speed and efficiency does the crazy design provide? Didn't see any actual numbers in the release.
It's not so crazy 😅 Ground effect water planes have a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle
I think the point of this specific design is mostly to make an all electric plane feasible for medium distance coastal travel. For example from the Spanish main land to the balearic islands.
300km range with end of life batteries and 300km/h cruise speed. With something like that most large islands can be reached from the next mainland and many seas can also be crossed, say the Caspian Sea, Persian Golf, Baltic Sea or the like.
What are "end-of-life batteries" in this case? Is the plan to reuse used batteries that are no longer fit for automotive service?
Batteries loose capacity over time. So "end-of-life batteries" are batteries at the end of their designed lifespan, when the capacity is at a low point.