Vancouver seaplane company to resume test flights with electric plane
Projects like these are neat, but I don't understand where the money for them comes from. At least electric cars had a use case that was achievable from the start (driving around locally) and are now usable for pretty much any kind of driving people want to do (maybe cross-country road trips are still challenging).But these electric planes are just clearly worse than conventional planes. The batteries take up a lot of weight and weigh the same at the start of the flight as at the end, and while I'm sure battery technology will continue to improve, the weight issue is going to be a problem for a long time. Trying to pursue this commercially just seems like a quick way to lose a lot of money.Edit: I'm not saying it won't work, just that it will be significantly more expensive than a conventional plane for the same performance for a long time to come.