Our Changing World: Electric motors for future flight

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On 17 October 2025, an Air New Zealand-branded BETA ALIA CX300 took off from Tauranga airport within the first of a collection of take a look at flights.

The plane, made by US firm BETA Technologies, is totally electrical. Rechargeable batteries feed an electrical motor which may energy the 2 seater cargo airplane a distance simply shy of 400 kilometres.

While testing came about throughout 4 months earlier than the airplane was returned to the corporate, the plan is that within the future such a airplane will shuttle mail throughout the Cook Strait.

It’s an thrilling development.

But whereas the numbers of electrical vehicles and buses on our roads have elevated, it could nonetheless be fairly some time earlier than we’re flying on clean-fuel electrical planes due to a number of engineering challenges.

When scaled up, conventional copper electrical motors and the batteries to energy them simply get too heavy.

Some airplane producers wish to hydrogen as a possible gas supply to create electrical energy onboard as a substitute of storing power in batteries, however the concern of the heavy copper motor nonetheless stays.

Other options are required, and that is what a group on the Robinson Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington are engaged on.

The institute is understood for its decades-long experience in excessive temperature superconductors.

These outstanding supplies are capable of conduct massive quantities of present with zero resistance when cooled to -196oC. As a consequence, excessive temperature superconductors can be utilized to make very highly effective electromagnets – magnets that ‘swap on’ when a present is handed via them – precisely the form of factor you want for an electrical motor.

Crucially, by changing the heavy copper wires historically used to make the magnets with considerably lighter superconducting tape, a superconducting electrical motor may end in a significantly better power-to-weight ratio – a key metric that the aviation trade is wanting for.

“[If] we can achieve a really high power-to-weight ratio – thirty kilowatts per kilograms – people, manufacturers, the aeroplane companies will come to us” says Professor Zhenan Jiang.

Zhenan leads the ‘Machines’ theme within the Future Magnetics and Materials Technologies Platform, supported by the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Technology.

So far, they’ve been engaged on the structure of the motor, says principal scientist Dr James Storey, “We’ve published several concept designs and with the new funding, with this platform, we intend to explore the actual build of most of the components if not realise a machine by the end.”

The race is on to discover a good resolution partly as a result of airplane producer Airbus has laid down the gauntlet.

Airbus launched their ZeroE project in 2020 to analyze how hydrogen may be used to energy electrical plane of the future. Last 12 months they selected hydrogen gas cells as the best way ahead. This expertise chemically converts hydrogen gasoline to water and warmth to create electrical energy, which may then energy an electrical motor.

At the identical time they introduced what this airplane of the future would seem like, says Dr Grant Lumsden.

“Airbus released their architecture for their first electric aircraft last year, and it was like four engines, four motors. Each of them was two megawatts, so sort of four megawatts on each wing. So that’s where everyone is looking at the moment, an electric motor of about that size.”

The competitors is on, he says, with the business heft of Airbus firing up teams world wide to attempt to resolve the basic physics and engineering issues.

Once such drawback is knowing alternating present (AC) loss via the excessive temperature superconductors.

While superconductors haven’t any resistance underneath direct present when cooled, they do have some when an alternating present is handed via them. For some electric motor designs an alternating present is required via one of many electromagnets, to make the magnetic subject repeatedly flip, which powers the rotor.

But as a result of that is such a brand new utility of excessive temperature superconductors, so far they have been relying simply on modelling, says Zhenan, and he needs to vary that.

“Worldwide, we don’t have any experimental data. So we [will] try to be the first in the world to characterise those AC losses in superconductors potentially [to] be used in motor windings.”

In their announcement, Airbus stated they’re concentrating on 2035 to have that all-electric plane within the sky.

However, scientist James cautions that fixing the physics and engineering questions is only one aspect of the coin when contemplating how rapidly electrical planes will turn into out there.

“I think the ultimate factor will be getting the technology through all the regulatory steps and in a very safety critical field like aviation that can take a long time,” he says.

But on the flip aspect, Grant says, if they’ll design and construct one thing that solves the issues and clears the regulatory hurdles, it is going to be in demand.

“The great thing about aviation is once you’ve got a part that’s on an aircraft, the aircraft manufacturers never want to change. They always want to buy exactly the same part from you.”

“We’re hoping that companies in New Zealand can build the tech and feed into those supply chains.”

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