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My angle was entirely on ground transportation issues. As for aircraft, this is only really a thought for small piston airplanes, which is a minor detail in the

• chongli 3y ago
  One of the biggest advantages of combustion fuels for aircraft is that they lose weight as they’re consumed. Batteries don’t do that, so you’re stuck hauling the dead weight of all the drained cells for the entire trip. Airlines optimize to such an extent that they include only the fuel needed to reach a destination, including a safety margin, so on short-haul flights the tanks are mostly empty at takeoff. I think electric planes could be made to work fairly well for those short flights because the batteries could be kept small. But for long flights the deadweight is going to be a huge problem!
  • HansHamster 3y ago
    > Airlines optimize to such an extent that they include only the fuel needed to reach a destination, including a safety margin, so on short-haul flights the tanks are mostly empty at takeoff. And on the other hand, planes on long flights are so heavy due to the additional fuel that they can not land early without getting rid of the excess weight first or risk structural damage or worse.This usually means dumping the fuel or burning it off in a holding pattern.
  • TylerE 3y ago
    And smaller aircraft often have nearly zero useful load with full fuel. So if you want to actually carry something, you’re going to only filling up, say, half way. (The reason they do this is to have a useful ferry range when empty).