Firstly: I'm a fan of Harbour Air's work and their electrification. Have flown that airline.
Retrofitting electrical flight to a 1950s airframe will be, in the long run, not a great use of the technology.
Those planes were designed around having a single heavy powerplant up front driving the propeller, and fuel largely distributed along the center of gravity (in the wings) so as not to adversely alter flight characteristics over the trip. The electrified Beaver stores its batteries in the fuselage; of course there is no change in mass/CG over the flight with electric, but all that fuel tank space in the wings is going to waste. The fact that these are floatplanes make charging/battery replacement tasks at the dock challenging and restrict options.
A clean sheet design, with multiple distributed smaller motors and more options for battery placement, will be a significant improvement.
Retrofitting electrical flight to a 1950s airframe will be, in the long run, not a great use of the technology.
Those planes were designed around having a single heavy powerplant up front driving the propeller, and fuel largely distributed along the center of gravity (in the wings) so as not to adversely alter flight characteristics over the trip. The electrified Beaver stores its batteries in the fuselage; of course there is no change in mass/CG over the flight with electric, but all that fuel tank space in the wings is going to waste. The fact that these are floatplanes make charging/battery replacement tasks at the dock challenging and restrict options.
A clean sheet design, with multiple distributed smaller motors and more options for battery placement, will be a significant improvement.
https://harbourair.com/going-electric/?tab=Specification