With Airbus announcing the success of its electric airplane, the first of its kind, it leads me to wonder. I hope they will do better than Better Place, because if they do not, the planes will not get very far.

If the planes, rather than consider small planes making puddle jumps let's consider the future with larger planes - jets and jumbos crossing oceans and flying long distances, will have to make an excessive amount of charging stops - maybe it will be cheap enough for people to consider the extra stops worthwhile...

would the batteries needed to avoid too many charging stops be too cumbersome? maybe people wont be able to bring luggage, as the batteries would take up the bulk of the storage. Better Place owners cant travel far, with their only option for recharging being at their homes - will the planes be limited like that as well? Maybe they will make battery packs, like what we carry around for the poor battery life on our cellphone batteries, that pilots can carry to charge the plane with if they find the batteries running low (from too much Words with Friends or 2048 usage)..