So I love the idea of electric powered airplanes. The two main drawbacks right now, are the weight/range ratio and the charge time. The weight to range problem is being improved all the time, and shouldn't be a problem within a few years.

The charge time, however, will take YEARS of development to improve significantly...and will probably never get to the 10 minutes or less it takes to fill up an airplane's tank.

So my suggestion would be that developers create a standard for batteries and airports carry banks of them. This way instead of waiting for your batteries to charge, you simply replace them with already charged ones at the airport for a slight fee. (Obviously designers would have to make the batteries easily removable for this to work.)

This way you'd buy a plane with batteries in it, but you don't really count the batteries as "yours." You switch them out whenever their running low. Airports charge something like $50 or even more to replace batteries. That will very easily cover the cost of buying and charging the batteries for the airport.


I think that's the best solution for electric power to REALLY work. What do you guys think?