Peek at the future: Norway tests tiny electric plane, sees passenger flights by 2025
Norway wants all domestic flights to be electric by 2040
Norway has tested a two-seater electric plane and predicted a start to passenger flights by 2025 if new aviation technologies match a green shift that has made Norwegians the world’s top buyers of electric cars.
Transport Minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen and Dag Falk-Petersen, head of state-run Avinor which runs most of Norway’s airports, took a few minutes’ flight around Oslo airport on Monday in an Alpha Electro G2 plane, built by Pipistrel in Slovenia.
“This is … a first example that we are moving fast forward” towards greener aviation, Solvik-Olsen said. “We do have to make sure it is safe – people won’t fly if they don’t trust it.”
He said plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus were developing electric aircraft and that battery prices were tumbling, making it feasible to reach a government goal of making all domestic flights in Norway electric by 2040.
Asked when passenger flights in electric planes could start, Falk-Petersen, the pilot, said: “My best guess is before 2025 … It should all be electrified by 2040.”
The two said the plane, with a take-off weight of 570kg, was cramped and buffeted by winds but far quieter than a conventional plane run on fossil fuels.