Geely to buy Volocopter, Vertical's flight, Vueling's new livery & more (The Allplane Newsletter #173)
Electric aviation
The Nordic Network for Electric Aviation (NEA) has presented a comprehensive report about the opportunities and needs of electric aviation in the Nordic countries, complete with a simulation tool that makes it possible to check what the potential electrically-powered air routes could be across the Nordic region.
Busy day for Electra.aero. The Virginia-based startup presented its EL9 hybrid-electric aircraft design and announced it is going to collaborate with NASA to help design the airliner of the future.
An American battery maker called Lyten has acquired Cuberg’s assets in the Bay Area after Northvolt basically closed down its US aviation-focused subsidiary and offered staff to relocate to Sweden. Crazy to think that not even a year ago I attended the opening of those same facilities!
Btw, Lyten’s core technology is based on the Lithium-sulphur chemistry, while Cuberg was Lithium-metal.
Advanced Air Mobility
Chinese car maker Geely may become the majority owner of troubled German eVTOL developer Volocopter. Geely would get 85% of Volocopter for €95M. This could keep Volocopter alive (for now) but would mean existing investors would see the value of their investment drop from its peak €1.9B to €110M.
Vertical Aerospace had its first piloted untethered flight and it also presented an update on its long-term strategy.
BETA Technologies has fly-tested the first production ALIA electric CTOL aircraft that has come out of its new Vermont factory. It has produced a nice video too:
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
The “Flight to Baku” that was being organized by Belgian entrepreneur Louis Lammertyn is finally not taking place.
The idea was to charter an aircraft either in Belgium or The Netherlands to fly COP29 delegates to Baku on the equivalent of 100% SAF usage (mostly through the book and claim process), but this required a minimum (pretty high) occupancy threshold which was not met.
Nevertheless this was an interesting initiative and resulted in some learnings too, which Lammertyn himself explained in a Linkedin post!
Air Canada is sourcing nearly 78 million litres of SAF from Neste.
As always with fuel quantities the first question that comes to mind is “how much fuel is that?” Enough for almost 1,200 round trips between Vancouver and Montreal in a B787 if using a 50% SAF blend, apparently. For now Air Canada is content with reaching a 1% SAF usage in 2025.
Hydrogen Aviation
SAS is joining a Danish-Dutch joint initiative to create a hydrogen industry cluster in both countries.
Other sustainable aviation stories
Open Airlines, a French software company that helps airlines reduce fuel consumption and emissions through the optimization of their flight paths, has raised €45M from several institutional investors. Open Airlines’ founder, Alexandre Feray, was an early guest of the podcast!
Other interesting aviation stories
Hypersonic flight startup Hermeus has integrated Starlink into an uncrewed prototype. Pretty cool!
Unfortunately, another supersonic/hypersonic flight startup, Exosonic, is closing down.
New aircraft pictures: I went to see Iberia’s A321XLR ahead of the type’s first transatlantic flight.
Vueling presented a new special livery dedicated to FC Barcelona’s female football team. The aircraft, an A320, will also fly the team to their away games.
