"According to the company, the eDA40 is expected to offer an endurance of up to 90 minutes “as the battery technology evolves” and be capable of recharging in under 20 minutes. "
In other words the technology to make this work does not exist. Where do I send my check?
Future is here. We already live in the electric aircraft era - the historical period when all players felt the need. The need to talk electric gibberish.
Got to wonder why they are not electrifying the 40 instead of the 20 or the motor glider.
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Maybe it‘ll be a 2- or 3-seater with the battery weight and the larger airframe might offer more flexibility to install it.
90‘ endurance on 20‘ charging time would seem attractive for basic training.
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The Jet-A Diesel engine powering the DA-40 is by far a superior option. Much longer endurance and range. The aircraft gets lighter as the fuel is burned. Diesel is a very efficient process of combustion. This wonderful fossil fuel can be made from crude oil or coal, and America has vast quantities of both. Fossil fuels are the most renewable form of energy imaginable able. Jet-A and diesel are available just about everywhere. Battery aircraft and vehicles derive their power primarily from fossil fuel power plants. Their total impact on the environment is significantly greater than fossil fuels. Read “Fossil Future” by Alex Epstein and look forward to the many benefits of the greater use of fossil fuels in the future.
The electronics are a tiny fraction of the power needed to keep the plane aloft, and any difference in screen size would in turn constitute only a tiny fraction of that. Now, if they want to heat the cockpit during those chilly winter days, that’s a different story 
Progress is great. The training environment with short one hour hops is the perfect place to implement the currently available battery and electric capabilities. Is battery power ready to take you on a long cross country? Not yet; but it likely will eventually.
Every time there is a story about new technology in aviation being introduced, there are always a certain number of doom and gloom commenters on these pages. One wonders if the same group would have been out on the beaches of North Carolina booing the Wrights as well.
We would have recognized the potential in the aircraft, but also the internal combustion engine.
This is different.
There are inescapable electrophysical limitations on the energy density of chemical batteries that will necessarily prevent them for mainstream practical use.
As I have said before, my (our) issue in not with electric motors but batteries. HFC, or a cogeneration system teamed with a proper piston gas, diesel, or turboshaft engine would work.
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Read the weasel wording about future battery development as quoted above. One thing that has been universally reported is that fast charging is really hard on batteries and substantially reduces both charge density and operational life, regardless of the platform. For instance, a large trucking conglomerate looking at Tesla and other battery trucks reported that fast charging reduces battery life by half, and replacement batteries are neither cheap or readily available.
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Is adding two or more additional components to the power trail really improving anything?
It will be interesting to see what effect the DC fast charging will have on the aircraft batteries in actual field conditions. It is true that the faster you recharge lithium based batteries, the faster the chemistry degrades - partially due to the heat buildup within the cells. If the battery packs have an internal cooling system, some of that may be eliminated, but overall, it will still eventually shorten the life. In addition, constantly depleting the charge below about 20% and charging to near 100% will have a significant effect on battery life. What is valuable in this “experiment” is that it will give good data on how batteries will hold up in real-world operation.
I suggest more articles on electrically powered aircraft. Eventually most anti-battery multiposters will throw in the towel and park their donkey carts. Several already have.
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No one is “anti-battery”; rather, think of it as being realistic about total emissions and performance.
A much more accurate term therefor would be “anti-hype”. I think that all us rational pilots can be in that camp when it comes to discussing aircraft.
William, the mere fact that you do not know how to reply to the appropriate thread of a comment session is testament to your lack of technological acumen, so I understand how you cannot comprehend the evolution of battery technology. There have been recent breakthroughs with regard to LiS and LiAir batteries to overcome the charging cycle limitations and it’s just a matter of time before these technologies reach production scale. You constantly post comments regarding limitations of physics, but it is clear that you do not truly understand the physics because there are plenty of chemical combinations that result in very high multiples of energy density and it’s just a question of time before our best and brightest overcome the obstacles to making these solutions viable. Once again, the physics actually support the technology for energy density, so your initial oremise is wrong. But as I mentioned earlier, you must not truly understand technology, otherwise you wpyld have know how to reply to a comment such that your invalid remarks would be subordinate to the original comment.
Remember though, wearing out the battery and other costs are going to be compared to the cost of fuel and maintenance of the piston engine. It’s not a hard goal.