Why do we not have electric planes? The first guy crazy enough to try flying in anything electric was a French dude, like 140 years ago. The main problem back then, batteries weren’t exactly long lasting or powerful. Apple, Tesla, Samsung... modern batteries last ages. Well, not really. Even the biggest electric car battery couldn’t keep a plane in the air, not for long anyway.

Right now, one pound of airplane fuel has almost 60 times more energy than a regular battery. They’d need to make the fuel tank 60 times bigger… and fill it with batteries! But batteries are heavy. So you’d need to make the electric airplane more powerful to handle the weight. So then you’d need even more batteries, which would mean more weight, so you’d need to make an even stronger… you get the picture. But engineers are trying to find a balance!

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