Rolls Royce’s all-electric aircraft completes 15-minute maiden flight

British luxury automobile maker Rolls Royce's first electric plane has completed its maiden flight on Saturday. Rolls Royce's first electric plane, called 'Spirit of innovation' soared for around 15 minutes into the UK skies.

This one-seat plane uses a 6,000 cell battery pack with a three-motor powertrain that currently delivers 400 kilowatt (500-plus horsepower). Rolls-Royce said the aircraft will eventually achieve speeds of over 300 MPH.

Rolls Royce said that its airplane--dubbed the ‘Spirit of Innovation’ is one way in which through which the company is helping decarbonise the critical parts of the global economy.

Warren East, CEO, Rolls-Royce, said: "We are focused on producing the technology breakthroughs society needs to decarbonise transport across air, land and sea, and capture the economic opportunity of the transition to net zero. This is not only about breaking a world record; the advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme have exciting applications for the Urban Air Mobility market and can help make ‘jet zero’ a reality".

The company said that the Spirit of Innovation is the result of a programme called ACCEL, or Accelerating the Electrification of Flight. The other partners in the initiative include YASA and Electroflight. YASA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz.

Nowadays, several aircraft companies are exploring to manufacture electric planes as air travel and cargo account for a higher amount of carbon emission.

According to the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide emissions from aviation hit almost 1 metric gigaton in 2019, which is about 2.8% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Last September, a hydrogen fuel-cell plane capable of carrying passengers took to the skies over England for its first flight.

In 2016, the Solar Impulse 2, a manned aircraft powered by the sun, managed to circumnavigate the globe without using fuel.