MIT Team Releases Tempting Report On Electric Aircraft Technology

That’s true. On the other hand, nobody flying an electric airplane is going to crash because they forgot to switch tanks, or the carb iced up, or the engine swallowed a valve, etc. And the “fuel” gauges will actually be accurate. Battery technology isn’t where it needs to be to make these aircraft practical, but there are a lot of people investing a lot of research into making better batteries. If they succeed, electric propulsion will have a lot of advantages.