SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. — Two Snohomish County companies are turning all electric powered flight into reality.
One is Eviation of Arlington.
“We picked this part of the world because we would get the right kind of talent,” CEO Omer Bar-Yahay said.
Bar-Yahay started the company in Israel then moved it to western Washington, to take advantage of the massive aerospace cluster of companies within the Seattle-Everett-Tacoma metro area.
The other is magniX, founded by Roei Ganzarski in Everett. His company builds the electric motors that power the planes. The motors are already demonstrating their ability to power a Cessna Caravan and deHavilland Beaver over the past 18 months. Both of those are single motor airplanes, Eviation’s plane will have two.
Eviation’s plane is designed to carry nine passengers 440 nautical miles. It is a swoopy aircraft made from light weight composites. It’s 8,000-pound lithium ion battery is half the weight of a loaded plane. Though it began as a commuter style passenger plane, it got a huge boost this week from global package giant DHL, which ordered a dozen of them to replace fuel burning feeder planes that move packages between its west and east coast U.S. hubs and smaller markets.
The plane can carry 2,600 pounds of cargo, according to Eviation.
“And it sends a strong message about what we’re saying in this space about sustainability,” said Mike Parra, DHL’s chief for the America’s for the German-based company.
DHL also has moved toward more electric ground vehicles to make deliveries and pickups, and airport tugs for its planes at airports as it’s also moving toward Sustainable Aviation Fuels made from things like plants and blended with regular jet fuel for its larger planes, which include Boeing 767s.
But it could be decades before we see a plane the size of a 767 become electrically powered. Hydrogen fuel cells and technologies not yet invented could push those technical limitations to get to zero emissions.
“These are exactly the problems that we and other companies right now are working to solve,” said Bar-Yohay as he envisions a growing company here in Snohomish County.
The plane is in final assembly inside a brightly-lit hangar at the Arlington airport. It is expected to fly this year.