Why planes aren't electric. Yet.

Electric planes are great on take off because as the energy density of leading batteries tends towards that of Jet-A1, the weight difference will become negligible. The only issue is landing where the traditional aircraft will have burnt off its fuel so the landing distance is much shorter. Even these  fuel based aircraft may have to burn some fuel in emergencies if they need to land shortly after departure.

Any further increase in battery energy density over that of Jet-A1 could be dangerous, as we've already seen what happens when all that energy is released at once in an aircraft crash and subsequent explosion.

That coupled with the requirement to have the capability to fly for many more hours over and above the standard flight time to negate emergencies or holding for weather improvement means it's going to be tricky to replace these aircraft.

Ultimately it is really exciting and as someone who lives on a small island I would love to see electric short range aircraft adopted as soon as possible. Hopefully the tech to replace fuel based aircraft is here as soon as possible, because the current aircraft are unsustainable.