Flying in Beta Technologies' Alia CX300 showed me why electric planes aren't mainstream yet

• Beta’s electric plane can already fly for hours. So why aren’t paying passengers riding in one yet?
• The biggest roadblock is hiding under the floor: nearly 3,000 pounds of batteries.
• Beta is racing toward a 2027 certification target, but getting airborne may be the easy part.

The CX300 is fast and surprisingly maneuverable.

Then there’s the infrastructure problem.

Beta has installed more than 120 charging stations across the US, and its system can recharge an aircraft in under an hour.

The company is also building the charging technology itself, meaning it can develop the planes, batteries, propulsion systems, and infrastructure as parts of the same ecosystem.

Beta is spending hundreds of millions before its plane reaches commercial service.

Getting the technology to work is expensive. Beta says it generated a little more than $35 million in revenue last year against about $400 million in operating expenses.

The company is also building a business around replacement batteries, which it expects customers to need repeatedly over an aircraft’s lifetime.

2027 could be the real test.

Beta is targeting FAA-conforming production of the Alia CX300, its conventional-takeoff aircraft, at the end of 2026 or early 2027, with certification expected by the end of 2027.

The company plans to start with medical, cargo, and defense missions before moving into passenger service, while continuing to develop a vertical-takeoff version that wouldn’t need a conventional runway.

Certification still won’t guarantee cheap electric flights.

Electricity itself can be cheap: The CX300 demonstration flight I was on cost only a few dollars in electricity, according to Beta.

Commercial operators would still have to pay for pilots, maintenance, insurance, charging infrastructure, and battery replacements.

Beta has already shown that an electric plane can fly hundreds of miles. By the end of 2027, it hopes to prove something much harder: that one can make it through certification and become a commercial aircraft.