Rolls-Royce unveils world’s fastest all-electric aircraft

Rolls-Royce has unveiled its all-electric aircraft, meant to be the world’s fastest with a target speed of 480+ KMH, at Gloucestershire Airport, the company announced.

The plane is part of a Rolls-Royce initiative called ACCEL – short for “Accelerating the Electrification of Flight” and involves a host of partners including electric motor and controller manufacturer YASA and the aviation startup Electroflight.

Half of the project’s funding is provided by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and Innovate UK.

ACCEL will have the most power-dense battery pack ever assembled for an aircraft, providing enough energy to fuel 250 homes or fly 200 miles (London to Paris) on a single charge. Its 6,000 cells are packaged to minimize weight and maximize thermal protection. An advanced cooling system ensures optimum performance by directly cooling cells during the high-power record runs.

The propeller is driven by three high power density axial electric motors and compared to a conventional plane, the propeller blades spin at a far lower RPM to deliver a more stable and far quieter ride. Combined they’ll continuously deliver more than 500 horsepower for the record run. Even during the record run the all-electric powertrain delivers power with 90% energy efficiency and of course zero emissions. In comparison, a Formula 1 race car tops out at close to 50% energy efficiency.

Rolls-Royce has also partnered with Airbus on the E-Fan X technology demonstrator project, which is an important stepping stone towards hybrid electric commercial aircraft at the scale of today’s single aisle family, the company adds.

Rolls Royce

UK Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy

Innovate UK

Aerospace Technology Institute

Electroflight

YASA

Airbus

Gloucestershire Airport

all electric aircraft

fastest all electric passenger aircraft

ACCEL

Accelerating the Electrification of Flight

E Fan X technology

hybrid commercial aircraft