Originally Posted by
atpcliff
For those of you who feel it is a pipedream, there were many, many carriage and horse-type people who knew that the new "horseless carriage" would never take off: For example, they were too difficult to operate, they were loud, dirty and stinky, there was no where to drive them (not enough suitable roads), there was no where to maintain them, and there were no places to refuel them.
And they laughed at Bozo The Clown too.
Electric 'horseless carriages' are nearly two centuries old; they're not some new invention that just became technologically feasible. They were abandoned when the ICE car became viable because in comparison electric cars sucked. They still suck for the same reasons, while the ICE has improved dramatically.
Which is not to say that electric vehicles aren't a good idea in specific markets where the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, or that an electric training aircraft is a bad idea, but absent massive improvements in electrical storage and recharging technology, or some kind of external power supply, they're not going to replace the ICE.