Why do you mention long range flight? I don't see anything in the article saying batteries will take 100% of the airplane market.
It does say batteries will start to take market share in 2030. That's almost certainly true. It's a high priority for the Norwegian company to electrify the short distance airplane network in the next coming years. There are already battery electric planes coming out. And battery chemistries suitable for short range planes are starting early production.
I suspect battery electric plane will get a surprisingly good range once we start to get highly optimized battery chemistries and optimized airplane designs for that market. The hardest part is to get the first few products to mass market.
They might creep into the medium range market by 2050.
But long range? It might never happen. Unless we get something like aluminum-air batteries that can exploit oxygen in the air somehow. But it doesn't matter. Long range flights are not the majority of flights. It's a small enough market that e-fuels could cover it.
Since flying battery electric will be so much cheaper it's also possible people will have to switch planes multiple times on a journey. Maybe there will be some innovations/optimizations that make that faster and easier.
Long haul might not be the majority of flights by number, but they account for ~40% of the emissions from commercial aviation (well more accurately, wide-bodies do.) Regional flights that are prime targets to go fully electric only account for around 6% of emissions.
But you're right that starting somewhere is better than not doing that.
It does say batteries will start to take market share in 2030. That's almost certainly true. It's a high priority for the Norwegian company to electrify the short distance airplane network in the next coming years. There are already battery electric planes coming out. And battery chemistries suitable for short range planes are starting early production.
I suspect battery electric plane will get a surprisingly good range once we start to get highly optimized battery chemistries and optimized airplane designs for that market. The hardest part is to get the first few products to mass market.
They might creep into the medium range market by 2050.
But long range? It might never happen. Unless we get something like aluminum-air batteries that can exploit oxygen in the air somehow. But it doesn't matter. Long range flights are not the majority of flights. It's a small enough market that e-fuels could cover it.
Since flying battery electric will be so much cheaper it's also possible people will have to switch planes multiple times on a journey. Maybe there will be some innovations/optimizations that make that faster and easier.