In addition to semi-announced long term initiatives like the Tesla pickup truck, Elon Musk has also floated the idea of making a Tesla plane. And while it sounds far fetched now, once it finishes developing its range of electric vehicles, bringing renewable energy to commercial aviation seems like a pretty logical next step.
“The exciting thing to do would be a vertical takeoff and landing supersonic jet of some kind,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a September appearance on Joe Rogan Experience, noting that he’d discussed the idea with “friends and girlfriends.”
It sounds like pie-in-the-sky thinking, but Tesla has built a reputation as a firm that can take existing vehicles and electrify them with great success. The company first released the Roadster in 2008, the first all-electric production car with a lithium-ion battery, back when electric cars were a rare oddity. It then launched the Model S sedan in 2012, the Model X sports utility vehicle in 2015, and the Model 3 entry-level car in 2017. It’s now planning the entry-level Model Y, a Semi electric truck and second-generation Roadster, all while producing around 7,000 cars per week.
Tesla also has a lot of experience with building bigger and bigger batteries technology. It built the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in South Australia with 100 megawatts of storage, using the Powerpack commercial product to store wind and solar energy. It also sells the Powerwall for home users, while the company’s Solar Roof can blend into an existing property to harvest energy. If anyone knows how to make a huge battery fly through the air with passengers and cargo, it could be Tesla.
Tesla Electric Plane: What’s Elon Musk Said About It?
Musk has discussed his plane idea several times over the years, going back to 2009 when he mentioned the idea to George Zachary at the Charles River Ventures CEO Summit, stating that “an electric plane gets more feasible as battery energy improves,” but “I try not to think about because I have too much to think about.” His comments were captured on (somewhat grainy) video which was published by TechCrunch at the time.
