Advanced Air Mobility goes hybrid

???I’m Kolin, based in the lovely city of Hamburg, and passionate about innovation and tech, specifically everything that shakes up the broader aerospace and aviation industry.

I will be sharing a?curation?of the????hottest????trends and developments in aerospace and aviation, covering generation-defining trends shaping and disrupting our future of air mobility. The AeroTechPulse will be distributed bi-weekly, centering on the broader sustainable aviation space, incl. deep dives on advanced air mobility aka. air taxis.

?? Trending.

Heart Aerospace has unveiled a new aircraft design and, along the way, said goodbye to all-electric propulsion. Instead, the new design is based on a reserve-hybrid propulsion system consisting of an electric drive and conventional turbo generators powered by sustainable aviation fuel. The new design allows Heart to increase passenger capacity (up to 30) while also increasing range (up to 200 km full electric, 400 km extended hybrid, and 800 km extended hybrid with 25 passengers). The redesign makes sense, as recent studies have indicated for some time that an all-electric-powered aircraft would only manage a range of between 120 km and 200 km at most with current batteries.

Future operators of the aircraft seem to like the new concept. Air Canada and Saab have each invested $5 million in the company. Heart has also received several orders (as LoI). The company says it now has 96 pre-orders. In addition to existing partners (Braathens, Sounds Air and Icelandair), Air Canada, SAS Scandinavian Airlines and Rockton Aviation have also ordered or secured the option to order the aircraft.

?? Driving the Conversation. The Top 10 Reads.

The decade of the battery has just started, and will define the next era of innovation. The fundamental reason that batteries are becoming so important is simply that the technology has improved by leaps and bounds. Although?batteries are improving on practically any metric, the two clearest indicators are cost and energy density. The cost of batteries, measured in dollars per kWh stored, has fallen by a factor of 42 since 1991 and by a factor of 2.5 since 2010. The lion’s share of this improvement?was due to R&D efforts, but industrial scaling effects are starting to have a significant impact as well.

Batteries have a lot of use cases, ranging from electric vehicles, household appliances, micro mobility, up to air travel. It took a long time for this general-purpose technology to arrive, but now it’s here, and the next decade (or, really three decades) will see it transform the world around us.

The charging network for all types of mobility - including air taxis. Electric aerospace company Beta Technologies is working to build a network of chargers that could power its forthcoming small electric planes as well as ground-based electric vehicles. Beta has also launched an app in an effort to get pilots and drivers to its chargers. The current version of the app is simple, providing information for users to find a charger and start the charging session, but will be upgraded once a growing number of chargers are ready.

In its all-electric-delivery vision of the future, Beta is betting that its plane-EV combo charger will appeal to customers who will have on-the-ground transportation waiting on the tarmac when planes arrive; as delivery vehicles are increasingly electric as well, the company assumes customers will want to simplify the charging process as much as possible. When UPS?announced?its purchase agreement for 10 of Beta’s planes last year, the logistics company added a reservation for charging stations as well.

AirAsia and Skyports explore air taxi service in Kuala Lumpur. Skyports?Infrastructure, an Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) infrastructure developer, and AirAsia's Advanced Air Mobility have signed a Letter of Intent to explore the development of air taxi infrastructure in Malaysia. AirAsia has been actively involved in the operationalisation of AAM in Malaysia. In the past year alone, the company announced future plans to lease 100?Vertical Aerospace?VX4 eVTOL aircraft from?Avolon, launched its drone training programme, and most recently, extended drone-related training to the high-technology related sectors.

Eve Air Mobility launches real-life air taxi services for $95/trip in Chicago. The air taxi provider will jointly work together with Blade Urban Air Mobility, who is providing the service using conventional helicopters, helping Eve better study the concept of on-demand, short-distance inter-city air travel. Eve will perform the Chicago simulations from an existing helicopter landing site called Vertiport Chicago. Helicopters will carry passengers to helipads in two Chicago suburbs – Schaumburg and Tinley Park – each about 30 miles (48km) away. The demonstrations will include morning and afternoon flights on weekdays. Wondered how such a service looks like? Take a look below:

United Airlines backs another air taxi player. The airline invested $15 million in Eve Air Mobility, which included a conditional order for 200 aircraft plus 200 options. This is in addition to United's existing conditional order for up to 200 air taxis from Archer Aviation. United Airlines continuously expands its business. The airline already partnered with private bus operator Landline at its Denver Hub. The Landline operates buses as flights to Breckenridge and Fort Collins, Colo.; a service that United executives have touted as a way to “fly” places a plane cannot go at a significantly lower cost and with lower emissions.

Patenting of hydrogen fuel cell technology in aviation. Next to the big players (e.g, Airbus), many smaller firms (ZeroAvia, Universal Hydrogen) work on hydrogen aircraft solutions for short- to medium-distance flights. Millions of VC funding has already been poured in these companies, and some airlines have already formed partnerships. Is this a field worth pursuing, or where do we stand? Patent data can help to better understand the priorities of firms and on what technology they bet. What about hydrogen?

The top players in the field are Hyundai and Toyota, each with an active patent portfolio of more than 500 patent families in 2021. The top 10 also contains many aviation specialists such as Airbus, Safran, Boeing and Raytheon Technologies. However, it should be emphasized that hardly any of the players in the top 20 have any significant momentum in patent development. Apart from Hyundai and Kia, almost all competitors are stagnating, the exceptions being Safran, Raytheon, VW Group and Bosch, though all four are still at a comparatively low patent level. Interestingly, there is quite a lot of new activity visible at Airbus, but only since about 2019, which is in line with their proclaimed strategy. As deadlines for hitting emissions targets loom, it is likely that fuel cell innovation will become more important and, hence, be reflected by a growing number of patent applications filed in the aviation segment. Intellectual property continues to play an important role in protecting the investment made by innovators in meeting stringent emissions targets.

China rushes towards air taxi leadership. Geely Aerofugia unveiled a full-size demonstrator for its air taxi vehicle. Following, the Shanghai-based startup Volant Aerotech rolled out the VE-25 X1 demonstrator for its planned four-passenger air taxi. Moreover, a newcomer, Vertax, announced to enter the market with the Matrix 1, a five-seat air taxi that is designed to fly autonomously. Other projects in China include Ehang, Pantuo Aviation, Volkswagen, and Xpeng.

Even in an?aviation?market that has rewarded shorter routes,?regional?airlines are doing terribly. "Regional" aircraft have between roughly 40 and 150 seats and include turboprops like?the?de Havilland Canada DHC-8,?the?ERJ and E-Jet small-jet families made by Brazil's Embraer and, arguably, even?Airbus' A220. Early in?the?pandemic, many analysts believed that, though less economical per passenger, these planes would lead?the?recovery in a world in which seats were harder to fill and people stayed closer to home. They were wrong.?The?number of scheduled seats did initially rise as much for?regional?jets as for mainline narrow-body aircraft. But, since last summer, they have nosedived: Capacity?is now?roughly 20% below February 2020 levels. Turboprops have done far worse. What has happened? For one, many?regional?aircraft are operated by small firms under fixed-price agreements with mainline airlines, and?the?latter have spent a decade cutting feeder traffic to consolidate into fewer hub airports. Covid-19 has given them an excuse to further slash services to small airports. In 2020, for example,?United Airlines?ended its partnership with?ExpressJet Airlines, which tried to reinvent itself as a charter carrier before filing for bankruptcy last month. Contractors do have?the?luxury of not paying for fuel under?the?terms of their contracts with big carriers. But high fuel prices also increase?the?latter's incentive to reduce?regional?capacity. The?key factor, however,?is the?shortage of pilots, particularly captains. To plug holes in their staffing, big airlines have gone on an aggressive campaign to poach staff from smaller operators, leaving hundreds of?regional?planes grounded.

An overview from many angles of the advanced air mobility industry. The deep-dive includes a discussion of the recent U.S. certification changes, an overview of the funding level and its current difficulties to raise money, the order books of air taxi companies and their customers aka. operators of the air taxis, and the deeply needed infrastructure.

?? Noteworthy [VC] Transactions and Deals.

Eviation?[Orders] closes deal for 50 electric planes for the Caribbean

Rockton Aviation?[Orders] has entered into a letter of intent to buy up to 40 ES-30

Air Canada [Orders] acquires 30 ES-30 electric regional aircraft from Heart

Heart Aerospace [VC] receives $5 million each from Air Canada and Saab

United Airlines [VC] invests $15 million in air taxi startup Eve Air Mobility

United Airlines [Orders] buys 200 of Eve Air Mobility air taxis plus 200 options

EVFly [Orders] signed letter of intent for three of the "Axe by SkyFly"

?? End Note.

I hope you enjoyed Kolin’s AeroTechPulse. The next edition will be published in two weeks, always on Monday - so stay tuned and hungry ??.

Feel free to?connect on LinkedIn?and reach out in case of questions, feedback, and/or discussion on the topics.

Cheers,

K

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?? This is a curated newsletter. The ideas, views, and opinions expressed are taken from the respective news articles aka. authors and do not represent my own or the ones of my current employer ??