Most electric plane concepts remain just that - concepts - due to the weight and size of the battery necessary for such a thing. Industrial designer Michal Bonikowski's Earther One concept aims to overcome this limitation with friction. Triboelectric nanogenerators mounted in the wings would use the vibrations of the structure and friction created by the bending of the wings to generate the energy needed to power a handful of smaller electric motors. As a result, the craft's battery would only need to power takeoff and landing. Bonikowski claims that such systems are already efficient enough to make the idea work, although there are currently no plans to test the idea in a real-world setting.

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