Axial stack battery design could unlock the era of supersonic electric airliners
This &#x27;proposal&#x27; seems to assume that the rest of the aircraft would be almost unaffected by the change, which is very unlikely.<p>Existing engines are designed to compress air, combust fuel, and recover energy from the exhaust to push air (to propel the aircraft) then compress more (to keep the cycle going).  Once you are no longer combusting fuel, all of that compression is simply wasted energy. An electric aircraft is much more likely to have single-stage axial fans, with a much larger diameter than jets like the Concorde (because larger and slower fans are more efficient).  This difference in propulsion will probably affect various other elements of airframe design.<p>As an aside, Elon Musk has mentioned VTOL as a possible feature of electric aircraft, and this makes a lot of sense. If the fans can be tilted (to provide part of the &#x27;lift&#x27; for takeoffs and landings), it means that the airplane could have very small wings, which are usually good for efficiency, but cause problems while landing conventionally.