Many MindedA $9 electric flight shows Beta's case for regional aviation
A reporter's roughly half-hour flight from Burlington, Vermont in Beta Technologies' CX300 used about $9 of electricity. A comparable Cessna 208 Caravan would burn about 25 to 30 gallons of Jet A on the same flight, roughly $210 to $255 at press time. The plane reached about 85 knots, almost 160 km/h, within seconds of takeoff.
The CX300 is one of two variants of Beta's Alia airframe. It is a conventional runway-based fixed-wing plane. The other, the A250, is an eVTOL with four added lift propellers. Both share the same pusher motor, battery pack, flight control computer and fixed-pitch propeller. Beta says its test pilots have flown the Alia family more than 300,000 kilometers, including multiple U.S. crossings and overseas demonstrations.
The flight points to why this matters for mobility and energy. If electricity can replace jet fuel at that scale of cost difference, short regional hops, starting with cargo and medical transport, could become much cheaper to run. Beta also plans an open charging network meant to serve competitors' electric aircraft as well as its own, which could spread the infrastructure cost across the industry.
The caveats are real. The cost comparison comes from a single flight and fuel prices at press time. Beta expects FAA certification of the CX300 in 2027 and the A250 a year later, but those are expectations, not approvals. Its backlog of 991 aircraft is the company's own claim and includes options to buy, not only firm orders. Our source text was truncated, so charging network details are not covered here.
Source: IEEE Spectrum