eVTOL orders, hydrogen capsules & more (Allplane Newsletter #58)
It’s summer time in the Northern Hemisphere and, at least in Europe, things slow down a bit as many go on holiday, but the flow of news in the sustainable aviation space hasn’t abated…
Azul has announced a 220-strong, $1B order for Lilium’s eVTOL. The recently unveiled 7-seater craft will complement the Brazilian airline’s “conventional” network in what is already one of the world’s top markets for vertical take-off vehicles (aka helicopters). More details here.
We are not leaving Brazil just yet, because Eve, Embraer’s eVTOL arm, is partnering with Flapper, a provider of on-demand private aviation services, to perform a proof of concept eVTOL operation across several cities in Latin America (in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia) An interesting point in their press release is that 6 out of the 10 largest urban helicopter fleets worldwide are in Latin America (!), which highlights the strategic importance of this region for the nascent eVTOL industry
Some action from Joby, the Californian eVTOL has announced it plans to operate its own craft. One of aspects of the eVTOL roll out that is not yet fully clear is that of which business model will prevail and who are going to be the players that will dominate this space. Check out the announcement here.
If eVTOLs are to become as ubiquitous as some promise, they will have to be really, really quiet…and it seems that the people at Joby is on the right track, they have showcased the low noise profile of their aircraft and added some comparisons with other propeller aircraft for referece.
Logistics operator DHL has ordered 12 all-electric aircraft from Eviation (and they have also shared on twitter some animations showing how these sleek aircraft will look like in their yellow and red livery).
Another prospective operator of Eviation’s Alice is Cape Air. The New England airline is hopeful that its future electric fleet, ordered in 2019, could be operating as early as 2023 connecting Boston to several islands off the Massachusetts coast (which sounds like a tight timeframe when considering certification and all). Will see…
Fast on-time logistics is likely going to be one of the first real life applications of eVTOLs, for example, in medical applications. This is the purpose of this deal between Wingcopter, a German maker of unmanned eVTOLs, and Air Methods, that specializes in air deliveries for the health sector.
All these electric aircraft are going to need batteries and we’ve got some news also in this department…!
Lilium is going to source its batteries from Customcells (also from Germany). Here’s an article that explains Lilium’s supplier partnerships and sourcing policy.
Norwegian battery company Freyr, which recently went public via SPAC, has greenlighted its gigafactory project in Mo-i-Rana, in Northern Norway. Their batteries target a whole range of mobility solutions, but in a recent conversation with people close to the project they confirmed that aviation is one of the markets they are looking at.
Exciting news also in the hydrogen front:
Universal Hydrogen and magniX are teaming up (together with aeroTEC and Plug Power) to test the hydrogen capsule retrofit concept on a real aircraft.
We’ve been following closely these two ver interesting companies here at Allplane, check out the podcasts we did with magniX CEO, Roei Ganzarski, and Universal Hydrogen’s co-founder, Jason Chua.
Across the Atlantic, in Hamburg, Germany, ZAL, the Center of Applied Aeronautical Research, has unveiled a 20m-high, 100m3 new hydrogen tank that will expand twenty-fold research capabilities in hydrogen propulsion.
In case you were wondering, this is how it looks like:
WHAT ELSE HAS HAPPENED IN THE AVIATION WORLD?
SAS, or Scandinavian Air System, has turned 75!
In the years in which commercial aviation was an almost like a branch of the diplomatic service, SAS was a rare example of successful multi-national cooperation between Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the three countries pooling resources to set up a joint flag carrier.
The SAS museum next to Oslo airport is one of those I featured in this CNN piece about the world’s top airline museums.
We got a glimpse of Air France’s first A220, which is due in September.
Although this is not the first of the type operated by a French carrier. Air Austral just got its first A220 delivered and deployed it on the route between the French Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mayotte. This happens while Air Austral is facing a bail out.
And, given that we are talking about the French overseas territories, a couple of interesting new routes by Air France that will link the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to New York and Montreal using narrow body A320 aircraft. Norwegian attempted a similar play some time ago. Since the French Caribbean islands are part of the EU, the Open Skies treaty applies.
Russian airline S7 is launching a new low cost subsidiary and is ordering 24 A320neos for this purpose. Some thoughts on this.