The best part about the Cri-Cri is that it both illustrates the potential and the failings of purely electric vehicles in one convenient package. The Cri-Cri is the world’s smallest electric airplane, and it has some serious problems.
The Cri-Cri is a one-seater aircraft, and a joint product of the EADS Innovation Works, Aero Composites Saintonge and the Green Cri-Cri Association. It uses a lightweight composite hull to allow for the extra weight of the batteries and electric motors that power the plane, and its maximum speed is about fifty five miles an hour (110 kilometers an hour).
And this is where the problems start coming in. See, that seven minutes is about a quarter its total range. This means either you’re flying to somewhere about fifteen minutes away if you want to fly home again, or you’d better be hoping wherever you fly to has a power outlet, or you’re standard.
Cri-Cri is just a start, but to really make electric vehicles viable you have to improve battery technology, which is still pretty low on the totem pole. But once that’s done, things like the Cri-Cri will be ready and waiting to change the world.
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