If there’s a country out there trying to will an all-electric society into existence, it’s Norway. In 2024, 90% of all cars sold there were EVs. To protect the pristine environment of its fjords, Norway is forcing all ships sailing there to transition to zero-emission. And now, a long-gestating plan to electrify flights in the country is bearing fruit, as it recently completed a test cargo delivery using an all-electric plane. What’s a fossil fuel?
The plane was an Alia CX300, made by Vermont startup Beta Technologies, as the New York Times reports. The route went from Stavanger to Bergen, a so-called “milk run” in local parlance. The Scandinavian country is of course part of the European mainland, but it also encompasses a vast number of small islands right off the coast. Traversing them by bridge or ferry takes a long time, which is why Norway has a huge number of domestic flight routes for a country of its size, fully 560.
Trouble is, most passenger and cargo planes are larger aircraft meant for medium-haul flights and longer. Larger means heavier, which means more fuel. For short runs, say under 250 miles, and/or with fewer passengers, they’re just overkill. Electric planes, meanwhile, have issues with getting enough power density out of their batteries. Because lithium-ion can only store so much charge, any aircraft flying on them would have to be smaller, lighter, and shorter-ranged — wait a minute, that’s exactly what Norway needs. And Norway knows it.
Investing in flying electrons
The nation does seem serious about pushing towards this future, beyond just saying nice things about renewable energy and then just sitting around. The Scandinavian country is investing $1.9 trillion into green energy, and the NYT says “the state has injected $5 million to make the [Alia] test flight a reality.” Bigger picture, it wants all its short-haul flights to be electric by 2040. Norway is making significant strides in that direction.
Obviously, an all-electric domestic fleet would be great for pollution. But it opens up some more immediate opportunities, too. Since the planes will be smaller, the runways and airports they land in can be smaller, extending the number of possible routes to more and more islands. Speaking of flight routes, a major limitation on what can actually be flown is noise pollution, since local governments are very restrictive about this. Electric planes pretty much dodge this problem altogether, since they don’t have howling engines. That makes them legally able to fly places where their gas-powered cousins can’t.
As EV owners know, not having an engine makes maintenance cheaper, too. Without all of those pesky moving parts, not to mention the lack of jet fuel costs, electric planes are about 30% less expensive than the old guard. Sounds pretty good, all round! Why doesn’t everybody use them already?
Why everybody doesn’t use electric planes already
As mentioned above, batteries just don’t have the energy density of jet fuel. That means that the plane gets much less power for the same weight. As Beta Technologies is proving with its test flight, batteries can still handle short-haul runs with light cargo or a few passengers, and Norway’s islands are a great use case. But for mass-market, that’s more limiting.
Then there’s the battery’s old nemesis, cold weather, which Norway has just a little bit of. The cold will sap a lot of range away, and the planes didn’t have a lot to start with. Throw in heavy winds, and suddenly, questions emerge about how dependable those flights will actually be. Add all that up, and you get to aviation giant Airbus pulling out of its electric ambitions this year, not exactly a great sign of confidence.
Then again, Beta has deals with both Amazon and UPS, so private sector interest continues. And public sector interest, in the form of the Norwegian state, is only growing right now. A government-funded, successful test flight is a big step forward. If Norway can single-handedly create a small but significant market for electric planes, it might just give the whole market enough runway to take off elsewhere. If it could, that would be a huge lift for the whole world: aviation accounts for 3% of all carbon emissions. I didn’t think the world would be saved by a couple of Norwegian islanders flying milk runs, but, hey, I’m not complaining.
