Battery Insiders Reflection - The Future of Battery-Powered Aviation: From Drones to Passenger Planes

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights and the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we're back. Welcome Bavia. How are you today? Doing well over here, Simon. How's it going? It's really good. And yeah, today I think we talked about a topic which could bring us closer together, which is aviation and the future of battery-powered aviation, from drones to passenger planes with Katie Mays, who's the director of strategic accounts at Ampheus Technologies. And yeah, I think it's a fascinating topic. We have been covering a range of different topics in some of the last episodes, different applications, you know, for I think, yeah, from, you know, maybe consumer electronics. We had some discussion on that and we had more discussion also more about maybe grid, but also different, you know, I think military was a topic people brought up. And so there really has been a range. And if I look back of topics, aviation is definitely an interesting one because it feels like one of these topics where it seems quite difficult to rectify compared to other ones.

1:04So yeah, how about you, Bavia? What did you take away from the discussion? Yeah, well, first I learned a lot about the technology for that kind of Ampheus's niche in the market. Funny enough, they are based in Fremont, California, for those of you who didn't catch that, which happens to be where I previously worked back at Tesla. So I thought, huh, well, that landscape has changed many more battery players, even in Fremont itself. So that was funny to hear. But yeah, I think like their niche is this specific silicon anode. And I think, you know, big discussions that came up around that were around, of course, use case, but also the kind of like that, the common compromise we talk about of like lifetime versus performance. I think it's interesting because they really emphasize that they're 100% silicon, which is not always the case. We have many players who purport that, but don't necessarily meet those expectations. And I appreciated her kind of explaining how technically that actually works, because the concern with silicon anode is that it often, you know, swells up and then kind of breaks through and that becomes an issue, obviously, with performance.

2:24And yeah, I think on, you know, as far as like maybe what else could have been more interesting for our speakers, I think what they're trying to do is make things possible, accessible, not only for the aviation industry, but also for other technologies like drones. And so there was a lot of discussion around that and what does certification look like and, you know, what different requirements they need to meet. And so these were some of my initial takeaways. But yeah, what did you think? Yeah, I agree. And I think what you're saying, and I mean, for the first time I kind of came across them was the Sapphire program, like this Airbus. So these kind of, you know, autonomous drones. And I was in discussions, you know, even back in the day. And I know there was discussions on, you know, do you use hydrogen, do you use batteries? And there's different learnings from each of them, you know, happy to discuss another time if you ever find me in person, you know, I can give you a bit of a backstory maybe.

3:14Some of the things I've come across. But yeah, I think it's, you know, it's super interesting to see. And I mean, that's, you know, a real world case. And then of course, I think drones now are also, you know, having quite a hotspot, let's say, you know, sort of the, again, from a military perspective, that seems to be, you know, a technology of choice. But then, and I think also just for surveillance, et cetera. And what's interesting though, and I think that's also in the trap call I had with her, which was, you know, I think this idea of, okay, you know, can you go for larger, you know, larger vehicles and going more passenger vehicles. And, but we can't even see it now, right? I mean, even talking to my colleagues, right? People are getting nervous about flying because there's been so many issues in the aviation industry recently. Yeah. And of course, it's a very risk averse industry, right? I mean, other industries as well, but aviation especially, and I think we touched a bit on the certification topic, something we already had a previous episode, if you're interested, was Cuberg a while ago, where we also looked at, they were looking at metal and liquid electrolytes and for, you know, evitols and things like that.

4:22So we had a really interesting discussion with Glenn also about certification. And I think it's came back here a bit. So I think that's something not to underestimate, right? Like when you look at different applications, like I think, especially, you know, the battery enthusiasts out there who might develop something cool in the lab or doing companies or what's done. And then I say, look, I got this amazing energy density now, and I want to bring this into this, let's say aviation industry, because properties are amazing. But then you shouldn't underestimate all the other things which you have to, you know, comply with again, regulatory perspective. It's going to be quite challenging, especially in the aviation industry. So just maybe something for, because I think it's easy for someone to write in aviation as a cool futuristic application and, you know, as a new kind of technology, but then actually the implementation is quite challenging because of all of the constraints around it. Yeah. I think aviation has come up a couple of times in the past few years for me.

5:15And it's either, you know, I remember one time I was like studying, doing things on biofuels. And so then sustainable aviation fuel or SAF came up here. We talked about it with batteries. I happen to have a roommate who is like a hydrogen expert and really thinks that's the future of aviation. What do you think? I think I, yeah, I'm always asked, especially when people learn about my background in batteries, like, oh, what do you think is the next thing? You know, and I'm sure that as our enthusiasts listening will also, may also be thinking like, what is, what are the trade-offs? What is most likely? How do you think about these things, Simon? I mean, being able to be in some of these very high level discussion, especially on the executive level from aviation companies. I think there in the past, at least, have been very strong on and off synthetic fuels, right? Just too difficult to change that for, for, you know, for larger airplanes.

6:13But I think that smaller airplanes, I mean, even now today, I think a nice use case for electric airplanes already today is flight training, because you do a lot of start and landing. And then, you know, it's very easy, like you don't do too many long flights. So, it's, so then you can recharge it quite easily in between. So, I think this has been a really nice use case. I think, let's say more the Ryanair length, you know, like in country or maybe in Europe, for example, or within the US in some regions. Yeah. Maybe five planes, maybe could be more battery driven. Hygiene is an interesting one. Yeah, it's just, again, the infrastructure, but then also the, yeah, there's some, some issues. I think also with the notion of it, you know, thinking back to the Zeppelins, I mean, yeah, so I think I'll be curious, but I mean, there might be a niche for that as well. Well, as somebody who travels a lot, I'm here for all of it, because I get told too much, my carbon emissions are crazy.

7:10So, I am often always, you know, I'm always curious about this one, because I do fly a lot, both personally and professionally. So, it's interesting to hear. Right. And I think also one thing, maybe interesting, I think if you then, because I think we touched a bit also with the Sapphire drone, right, where they can stay up a long, long time in the air by kind of, you know, having solar involved as well, and then making most use of it, and then using essentially the battery during the night, right, because during the day, they can fly with the sun, during the night, they need a battery essentially to keep flying. It was interesting, I think, use cases. And I think also, I have a lot of discussion on the C-Rates, you know, being able, again, if you, because the unknown usually is known for like quick recharge, right? And then there's a discussion, do you need quick research for an airplane? Because you could, maybe I also swap it.

7:57I was meeting with NIO again, two days ago, and I mean, they do battery swapping, right? And yeah, so I think, you know, like, I think that companies have different approaches. And the one thing I definitely, I think we talked about this before is I've seen studies on EV tolls where they actually, because you have so much, you know, you have so much power required for the liftoff and also the landing, and it doesn't get lighter, like in other airplanes, right, they kind of discharge their fuel if they have to land early, so not too heavy in the landing process. So yeah, I mean, the power requirements are quite intense, which can be quite intense for the batteries, which means actually you go through them quite quickly. So maybe half a year or so, the battery could last again, depending on low factors, which I think is also interesting. How, you know, like, again, that's different, maybe than second life and things can be more interesting because we still have batteries, which have some value, but they cannot do the maximum performance in which you need for the airplane application or the EV toll application.

8:54This mention of EV toll came up a few times in the discussion. Could you explain that a little more for our listeners? Sure. I mean, it stands for electric vertical takeoff, right? Yeah. Yeah. So essentially it's like, I mean, there are Liliums, there's other Volocopter and there's a range of other companies out there. So idea is that you can virtually take off. So you have, you know, let's say electric motors and then you have your, you essentially go up or your motors and you kind of can fly up and then you fly forward. So it's quite a nice way. And I mean, the idea behind this is to do it for like, you know, maybe a small passenger, maybe four or six or something passenger. And it's for maybe 300 kilometers or something of range. So like shorter, but like it's a fast way to get around instead of maybe a car or taxi. So it won't replace flying, in my opinion, but it'll be more complimentary.

9:45And you could, in theory, right? Avoid maybe traffic. It's a bit like a helicopter, which is more quiet. Interesting. Okay. Very interesting. Cool. Cool. I think with this, we can wrap it up for today. Thanks again for listening. Thank you. And I'll talk to you soon. See you next time. Yeah. And also one note is we're going to be, or at least the Battery Associates team, we're going to be at a lot of conferences coming up across the world from Europe, US, Asia, etc. So if you're interested to meet at least me and some of the team as well, please get in touch. And we might meet you there. So just get in touch over the Battery Associates website if you like. And we might see you at one of the upcoming conferences around the world. Awesome. Thanks, Simon.