On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we'll be talking about the future of aviation propulsion. Now it's no secret that the aviation sector has a reputation for its carbon emissions, but what few realize is that there are some amazing technologies on the horizon that will make a big impact in lowering those emissions. Our guests on this episode are Phil Robinson and Taylor Alberstadt. Phil works closely with hydrogen fuel cells, and Taylor is focused on electric and hybrid-electric propulsion.
On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we'll be talking about the future of aviation propulsion. Now it's no secret that the aviation sector has a reputation for its carbon emissions, but what few realize is that there are some amazing technologies on the horizon that will make a big impact in lowering those emissions. Our guests on this episode are Phil Robinson and Taylor Alberstadt. Phil works closely with hydrogen fuel cells, and Taylor is focused on electric and hybrid-electric propulsion.
Adam Kress:
Welcome to Aerospace Unplugged, I'm Adam Kress. Hello, and thank you for joining me for the Aerospace Unplugged podcast brought to you by Honeywell Aerospace. I'm your host, Adam Kress. And this is your behind the scenes look into all things Aerospace. On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we'll be talking about propulsion, but I'm not talking about typical jet engines this time around. We're going beyond that today and looking toward the future of aviation propulsion. Now it's no secret that the aviation sector has a reputation for its carbon emissions, but what few realize is that there are some amazing technologies on the horizon that will make a big impact in lowering those emissions. We'll be diving into a few of those technologies today.
Adam Kress:
I'll be talking to Phil Robinson and Taylor Alberstadt on two emerging types of sustainable propulsion. Phil works closely with hydrogen fuel cells, and Taylor is focused on electric and hybrid-electric propulsion. And when I'm talking about propulsion, this is anything from a light drone to a commercial wide-body and anything in between. I will start out today with Phil Robinson, he's the senior director of zero emission aviation here at Honeywell. He works to bring together critical technologies that will enable aviation to become greener and greener. Before coming to Honeywell, Phil worked for a company that manufactured small hydrogen fuel cells with portable applications, and it was acquired by Honeywell a few years ago. So with no further ado, let's welcome in Phil Robinson. Thanks for joining us, Phil.
Phil Robinson:
Thanks very much, Adam. It's a pleasure to be here.
Adam Kress:
All right, awesome. Let's dive in. So let's start with the basics. Tell me what a fuel cell is and how it works.
Phil Robinson:
Okay, that's a great question. And for a lot of America, a fuel cell is the gas tank in a NASCAR. That's not what we're talking about here. A fuel cell that we are talking about is something that you can consider a generator, it's a generator that runs on hydrogen. And as long as you feed it hydrogen and oxygen, and typically the oxygen just comes from the air, it will make electricity and heat and water. And if you think about a generator, you give it gasoline or some other fuel and it makes electricity and it makes heat, and it typically makes some kind of fumes that you don't really want. In the case of a fuel cell, instead of burning that hydrogen or fuel, we're electrochemically converting it with this oxygen out of the air. And so it doesn't make a lot of noise, it doesn't make a lot of heat. It makes a little bit, but not a lot. And instead of making all those nasty fumes, it makes water.
Phil Robinson:
And so that's where we really like to use it, in sustainable-type applications, because we're not making a bunch of stuff that's gumming up the atmosphere. A fuel cell is not like a battery in that it doesn't actually store any energy. And a lot of times that's a confusing thing for people. It's more like a generator, as long as you keep giving it hydrogen, it will keep making electricity. And so how much it will make is not dependent on the fuel cell, it's dependent on the tank, how big is the tank that the hydrogen's going to be in. One last thing about fuel cells, they've been around for a long time. Back in the days of the Apollo, the spacecraft were powered by fuel cells. More recently, cars in California are being powered by fuel cells, specifically to get rid of those emissions. And we also see buses powered by fuel cells in China, in Europe, and beginning to see them in the US, but the fuel cells that we're seeing today are primarily being deployed to reduce emissions.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Yeah, I was going to ask, and you mentioned a few of them, the buses and some cars in California, but outside of aviation, to the layperson, where are you most likely to see or experience the power of a fuel cell?
Phil Robinson:
Outside of aviation, the most likely application you'll see today is two things, one is buses. So there are a lot of fuel-cell-powered buses in the world. And the reason that a bus is great thing to start with for fuel cells, is if you think about the use models for a car, you go to all sorts of different places throughout the day, and you need gas stations at all sorts of different places, and you really wouldn't buy a car if you couldn't get gas. The beautiful thing about buses, is at night they come back to the same place, every single night. So with one hydrogen fueling station, you can power an entire city full of buses. And so it's a great leading application. The other place that you will see fuel cell that has nothing to do with mobility, is powering data centers. And this is again, really driven by the emissions, and by the ability to run even when there's atmospheric problems that are shutting down the power grid, a local fuel cell can continue to run and keep that data center online 24/7.
Adam Kress:
Okay, that all makes sense. Let's transition now into aviation. And we'll start with you first, how did you get into aviation, and fuel cells in aviation?
Phil Robinson:
That's a great question. And I came from a background of being a startup guy. And within Honeywell, this startup business is number seven for me. In the early days, the startups that I was involved with all were in this... And by early days, I started doing this in the mid '80s, and the startups were all about this new thing where these computers were talking to each other, and it became known as the internet. And so I was involved in a bunch of early internet startups. And we got to the point where those were getting a little boring, because the internet was established, and really the only goal was to make it a little bit faster. And so in the early 2000s, I was looking for something new that would be the next internet, and was approached by a hydrogen fuel cell startup. And so got into the fuel cell world then. And through acquisitions and spinoffs and other corporate events, became part of Honeywell a year and a half ago. And it's been nonstop fun.
Adam Kress:
That's great. So when we talk about uses of hydrogen in aviation, a lot of people, especially if they're not in the industry, "Oh, hydrogen and flight. Oh, the Hindenburg," almost 100 years ago, that's their only frame of reference for hydrogen in aviation, but I would assume that's not how hydrogen is being used today.
Phil Robinson:
That's a really good assumption. And yes, the Hindenburg is the first thing that comes to mind when we say hydrogen, whether it's aviation or not. And of course, one of the early conceptions that we like to share, is that when hydrogen burns, it is completely clear and it dissipates very quickly. So when you see those films of the Hindenburg, that is actually not hydrogen, you are seeing burning, because big yellow flames. What you're seeing is the highly-flammable coating that they put on the fabric around that. And that burned very slowly, where the hydrogen was gone from the Hindenburg before you even see the film rolling, that is now infamous. However, hydrogen, since then we've gotten a lot better at using it. And no, we do not put it in flammable bags, that's just a recipe for disaster.
Phil Robinson:
So today the hydrogen is stored in carbon fiber tanks that have been matured primarily through the automotive business, and they're really well made, they're really safe. And in fact, a tank of hydrogen has been shown to be far safer than a tank of gasoline. The challenge of course, is that we're all very familiar with gasoline. And we use it every day, we've been using it since we were teenagers. And while it is extremely hazardous, we're used to that and we're very comfortable with it. Hydrogen is less hazardous than that, but we're extremely not used to it, and therefore it's a little bit scary to us. The key is that in California, in Europe, in China, where these buses are, we've got lots of people that are getting familiar with it, getting comfortable with it. And the technologies are there to make it safe, just like the technologies are around to make gasoline safe.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. To the mainstream public, at least in America, what do you think it takes to overcome those, I guess old-fashioned safety concerns that don't really exist anymore?
Phil Robinson:
I really think what it just takes is experience. And when EVs first came out, the big batteries were pretty scary to people. There were a lot of concerns, "I'm going to have fireballs of exploding battery vehicles on the freeways." And the fact is, yeah, we've had a couple accidents where EVs have burned, but not many. And they don't burn any worse than a gasoline vehicle does.
Adam Kress:
Sure.
Phil Robinson:
And so over time we've gotten used to EVs, "Oh, I guess they're really not very scary." And so the same thing will happen with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as we use them, get used to them, see them. And they're also pretty cool, there's a coolness factor to them, just like there were to EVs early on. And so we'll get used to them and learn not to fear them.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Yeah, that all makes sense. So let's talk about, what are you up to every day at Honeywell, and how is Honeywell trying to advance pushing hydrogen propulsion into aviation?
Phil Robinson:
There's really two thrusts within Honeywell for fuel cells in aviation. And the first is really small fuel cells. These are fuel cells that would fit in a shoebox, and they're really being aimed at drones, and primarily commercial drones, also some defense drones. And you would use these fuel cells primarily when you need to have a mission that's longer than a battery can support, and you want it to be quiet, and so you don't want to use a gasoline engine, because gasoline engines are noisy, especially when you take off all the things that make them quiet, which you need to take off to make them lightweight. And so for these types of missions, and if you think about a commercial mission, for example, inspecting a transmission line, so a high-voltage power wire going between in cities. If you want to do that with a regular drone that may be able to fly a mile, well, then you've got to have guys in a pickup truck going a mile and picking up the drone, replacing the battery, launching it for the next mile, another guy in a pickup truck to replace the battery, et cetera.
Phil Robinson:
It takes a lot of guys in pickup trucks. Now guys in pickup trucks are cheaper than guys in helicopters, so it is in fact less expensive to do it with a drone than to do it with a manned helicopter. On the other hand, if that drone can go 10 miles or 20 miles or 50 miles, whole lot fewer guys in pickup trucks. And so the business case is really compelling for using hydrogen because we can get so much more energy in the same amount of weight compared to a battery.
Adam Kress:
Okay.
Phil Robinson:
The other thrust is manned aviation. And this is course much larger fuel cells. And the manned aviation space is all about reduced emissions. If you think about where as a planet we are going in 2030, 2035, 2050 from an emission standpoint, aviation needs to contribute to that reduction, and the industry knows it.
Adam Kress:
How big of an impact can hydrogen fuel cells really have across aviation on reducing emissions?
Phil Robinson:
That's a great question, Adam. And the answer is an enormous impact over time. So hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells have the ability to reduce emissions to zero. And that's a really huge accomplishment, but it's also a really huge project. It is really difficult to redesign an airliner that is right now running on jet fuel, which is a very, very efficient way to carry energy, to run on hydrogen. The industry has signed up for that project, and we've got people across the industry, Airbus has made announcements, Boeing has made announcements, Embraer has made announcements, lots of other companies have made announce that they are starting down that path, but we know it's a really long path, there's a whole lot of work that needs to be done. Honeywell is in a great position because we have relationships with all of these airframers already providing certified components for these aircraft.
Phil Robinson:
And so we know how to move components through the development pipeline, get FAA approval, get EASA, that's the European Agency's approval, and be able to put these things on aircraft, but it is a really long-term project. In the short term, we have other technologies like sustainable aviation fuels or SAFs that will reduce the emissions, but not eliminate them. And so hydrogen is really the long game, and it's an investment in the future that we as an industry are making, and Honeywell is part of that, but there's a lot of work to be done.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So who are your existing customers in this space right now? And I would imagine it's in the smaller drones and those type of unmanned vehicles, but who are you going after from a business-development standpoint, and how do you want to grow what Honeywell is selling related to hydrogen?
Phil Robinson:
Great question. In the small fuel cell space, our customers are primarily both commercial-drone manufacturers, as well as defense-drone manufacturers, because they tend to be early in their stages of developing these business processes, most of them are not public. So for example, Boeing Insitu is a defense-drone manufacturer that has made public the fact that we're working with them. We've put fuel cell power in the ScanEagle 3 and original ScanEagle aircraft, and are moving forward to be able to bring that long duration, quiet power to department of defense drones. We are working with other defense-drone manufacturers that are not public. In the commercial space, we're working with lots of folks that have not come public yet. One that has been made public is InDro Robotics up in British Columbia. Both they make drones and they also operate drones to do all sorts of applications around primarily Canada, but also parts of the US. And they're doing things like package delivery, inspections, all sorts of drone applications that are range-limited. And so the ability to use hydrogen to extend those ranges is a big deal to them.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Last question for the first half of this on hydrogen, what would you say is your top priority right now when it comes to hydrogen development?
Phil Robinson:
The top priorities right now, again, are split between the small and the large fuel cell systems. In the small fuel cell system, really the top priority is to support our customers to roll out their business models. And if you look at what will enable that, primarily it's being able to fly beyond visual line of sight. So today we have to fly with in sight of the pilot. And the FAA is busy making rules to enable drones to fly beyond a pilot's visual line of sight. And that requires power to be able to get it that far, as well as communication systems, radar-based detect and avoid, all sorts of other technologies that interestingly Honeywell makes. And so we're pulling all of those together to enable beyond visual line of sight flight. And having the small hydrogen fuel systems as part of that overall system, and helping these customers roll that out in a certified manner is a really important priority right now. On the large fuel cell, or manned-aircraft side, the big priority is establishing partnerships.
Phil Robinson:
This is a space where no one company can do it all alone. And so we're establishing partnerships with airframers, with people that build aircraft. Also with battery manufacturers, with all sorts of other component manufacturers that go into the aircraft, so that we can provide the entire solution that goes from the components that go on the aircraft, the aircraft itself, the refueling equipment that sits at the airport, the hydrogen-production equipment that feeds the refueling equipment, we have to provide all of that to enable the market. And right now we're establishing those partnerships that let us address all the gaps in order to enable that market.
Adam Kress:
All right, excellent. Phil, this has been incredibly educational. I don't want you to go away, but I do want to bring in our next guest to the show now, because hydrogen is not the only next-gen form of propulsion that we want to cover. So I'm happy to welcome in Taylor Alberstadt, he's Honeywell's senior director of business development for electric and hybrid-electric propulsion. I'm going to let the audience in on a little secret, Taylor is not messing around when it comes to talking about this stuff, because I parked right next to him and he is driving a Tesla. So he's living that electric life on the ground, and he is living it up in the air too.
Taylor Alberstadt:
Across all industries.
Adam Kress:
Yes, definitely. So let me see if I get this right. Taylor works closely with eVTOL OEMs in the UAS and UAM space, he also focuses on how the same technology can be applied on larger commercial ATR aircraft. There's a lot of exciting advances in this space, but for our listeners at home, could you start by giving us a brief overview of this space and what all those terms I rattled off really mean?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Well, Adam, you win acronym bingo for today.
Adam Kress:
Thank you, there's a lot in the industry.
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah, let me see if I can decipher some of that.
Adam Kress:
Okay.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So VTOL is where you started, vertical takeoff and landing, and that exists today in the form of helicopters, rotocraft, the F-35, a version of that can take off vertically. So we're talking about vehicles that depart and land at the same spot, same footprint, different than your traditional fixed wing aircraft that need a runway to take off.
Adam Kress:
Got it.
Taylor Alberstadt:
The evolution of that is eVTOL. The E is very important, E is for electric. So electric vertical takeoff, and landing. And these are the vehicles of tomorrow that do not have the emissions, that do not have the internal combustion engine, and are running on batteries, or as Phil rightfully introduced, could be hydrogen fuel cells. OEMs, another acronym we heard, original equipment manufacturers. And these are our customers, these are the airframers who are going to be building these vehicles of the future. UAS, UAM, very popular six letters in media. UAS stands for unmanned aerial systems, and we can think of those as, smaller drones typically is what falls into that space. And then UAM scales up to think about urban air mobility. And the mindset you can have around those are larger cargo drones, or air taxis, so moving around the urban environment.
Taylor Alberstadt:
A new acronym that you didn't mention, that can pull all these together is AAM, and that is advanced air mobility. Here we're talking about the emergence of a transformative aerospace technology to transport goods and people in new cost-effective aircraft in rural and urban environments. And some people refer to AAM more broadly as aerospace 2.0. So think about all of the new technology that will help shape aerospace. And that brings in UAS, UAM, and more broadly, the fixed-wing that will have more electric, hybrid-electric and all-electric architectures. And then you mentioned ATR, that's air transport and regional, those are our big airplanes. Think about moving from point to point, how you or I would get on an aircraft, that's the type of aircraft that fall into the ATR bucket.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So with that, you asked what's happening in this space, a lot. So there are over 200 OEMs right now in this AAM market. And these new entrants are looking at fulfilling various missions. And when I say missions, it could be a small class-1, class-2 cargo drone that in the not too distant future will be regularly delivering your Amazon packages. It could be, as I mentioned, an air taxi, which will revolutionize how you move around in inner city and intracity travel. It could be 12 to 19-seat regional aircraft that move more quietly in a greener fashion and more efficiently. Or ultimately, as we get into that ATR market, it could really be a new clean-sheet narrow-body or wide-body aircraft. And as Phil mentioned, Airbus has come out with some concepts of what the future of passenger travel could look like.
Taylor Alberstadt:
We at Honeywell are collaborating with a customer called Right Electric, who are exploring really interesting technology for a new narrow-body aircraft. So in terms of what's going on in this space, there's an awful lot. And what kind of progress are we talking about though? And it's exciting to know that there are a lot of ways these OEMs are moving forward. The Air Force through their Agility Prime network have prototypes flying with some of these customers already. There are four eVTOL companies who have gone public on the exchange, that is Joby, Vertical, Lilium, and Archer, and they've raised funds and are valued in the billions. So there's significant interest in this space.
Taylor Alberstadt:
And then we're really talking about entry into service states that aren't that far off. To name a few companies that are thinking of entry into service in the next two to three years, EHang has a planned EIS later this year, in 2022, Elroy Air, Pipistrel, mostly focusing on cargo to start, but you can have personal air vehicles, you can have air taxis. And there are many of the 200 new players in this space who are targeting entry into service before 2030. So it's happening now and it's happening fast.
Adam Kress:
Yeah, and you mentioned, some refer to it as aerospace 2.0, I don't think a lot of everyday travelers or folks who are outside of the aerospace industry realize the precipice that the industry is sitting upon, and to get things in service, like you described, short-haul, all-electric aircrafts, none of this has ever existed. And sometimes you hear people lament, "Well, air travel really isn't any different than it was in the 1960s." And they're not wrong since, since the dawn of the jet engine, no one has been flying from New York to LA significantly quicker, or that significantly cleaner. I mean, of course, internal combustion engines get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit cleaner, but it's not these big-step changes that we're talking about with things like electric and hybrid-electric. So when we talk about electric and hybrid-electric from a technological standpoint, what are we really talking about?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah. And that's a great question, because these are, as you introduced, different way of propelling a vehicle. So when we talk about all-electric solutions, that means we are using electric propulsion units, so EPUs. And they consist of motors and motor controllers, also known as inverters, and they move an aircraft via connection to a rotor or a fan. These EPUs are powered by electricity, and that can come from a variety of sources. As we heard from Phil, a fuel cell provides electricity, batteries provide electricity. Those are all-electric solutions, but you have other methods of providing electricity as well, for example, a turbo generator, which would take an internal combustion engine, pair it with a generator, and that would also produce electricity. So that's called a hybrid solution.
Adam Kress:
And Honeywell has created its own turbo generator, correct?
Taylor Alberstadt:
We have. So we play across that entire value chain. We're able to create a turbo generator to meet specific customer mission profiles, take that electricity through power distribution systems, run it to an electric propulsion unit. The electric propulsion unit uses that electricity to then turn that into mechanical power, which turns fans and rotors and allows for propulsion. So that's exactly right, the turbo generator that we plan on testing this year at Honeywell takes our state-of-the-art megawatt generator, and it combines it with the A350 APU, which is our latest, newest APU that flies on every A350 wide-body that Airbus produces. So the combination of those two products is the basis for a turbo generator, which is the building block for a hybrid solution.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So what are some different ways outside of a traditional internal combustion engine that you're working on to move a vehicle? You mentioned a few with the turbo generator, but what are those different propulsion architectures?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah, that's really interesting, because as I mentioned, there's a lot of different ways to move an aircraft, there's two major considerations. The first is, what's the power source? And that means, where does the energy come from? As I mentioned, there are different options. It can come from an internal combustion engine, which is using traditional jet A fuel, or these engines can now use 50% SAF blends, and soon they'll be using 100% SAF. So even though you're still using an internal combustion engine, you have a much cleaner solution. You can use a battery or a fuel cell as a power source, and then where it gets really interesting, you can use a combination of all of those things. And that again creates the basis for a hybrid architecture. The other main consideration when we're thinking about moving the vehicle is, what's the thrust source?
Taylor Alberstadt:
So thrust can come from the turbine engine itself, the way it spins today to propel an aircraft. It can come from electric motors, which I just talked about. And then the interesting part, a combination of both. So when we think about both of those considerations, it really creates a continuum where in a bottom-left corner you have a legacy propulsion engine using typical jet fuel. And then if you move all the way up across those two axes of considerations, you'll have an all-electric solution that is using electric propulsion units to move the aircraft. Then what's interesting is, all those blocks in between on that continuum are various hybrid solutions that can really be the perfect fit for various customers based on what their mission-profile needs are.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So what are the top benefits of these solutions? Obviously, they're going to be way more green than an internal combustion engine-
Taylor Alberstadt:
Sure.
Adam Kress:
... but what gets customers excited about all these new technologies?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah, we're not doing technology for the sake of technology, what's the payoff, where are the benefits here? And as you noted, the first one is very straightforward, with an all-electric solution you have emissions-free flights, zero operational emissions. And that's a good thing when we're talking about sustainability. If you peel the onion back a layer, and I won't go too deep here, batteries are emission-free from a flight and an operational point of view, there is a broader supply chain associated with that. If we think about, where do the raw materials come from, all the way up to the battery being manufactured and put on the aircraft, and then what happens to it after its useful life. So there are considerations if we're talking about sustainability to think about how is a battery treated over its entire life cycle, but for the sake of ease for today, from an operational point of view, an all-electric battery or a fuel cell solution is 100% green.
Taylor Alberstadt:
Next, if we think about battery charging, it is much cheaper than fuel cost today. As you mentioned, electric cars, people are constantly comparing, "Well, what did it cost to fill up your electric car?" You plug it in at home, five, $6 to charge it on your grid. You go to the pump right now, well, I haven't been in a while, but-
Adam Kress:
Yeah, there's a lot of three-figure gas bills these days.
Taylor Alberstadt:
Exactly right. So operationally it's lower cost. And in that same vein, maintenance associated with complex internal combustion engines is typically very expensive. So you have a cheaper solution with electric propulsion units. There's a safety element that is very prevalent if you talk about being able to distributed electric propulsion. And when I say that, we have our power source, whether it's a battery or a turbo generator, and you use these electrical lines to go to EPUs on various parts of a vehicle. So if you think about a helicopter, you have one big rotor, and if something happens, you have a problem.
Adam Kress:
Yep.
Taylor Alberstadt:
If you look at some of these new vehicle designs, you have eight, 10, 12, 30 propulsors or rotors all driven by EPUs. So if you have a failure, there's a much safer path to the ground via this distributed propulsion. Two more benefits, noise is very important, especially when people are saying, "Well, are these things going to be flying over my house?"
Adam Kress:
Yep.
Taylor Alberstadt:
And an all-electric solution, in aerospace you still have the fans moving, you have the rotors, but you don't have that gas-turbine engine. And that reduces noise profile significantly, the noise pollution is lower. And you see, at least early claims by some of these vehicle manufacturers, that at 200, 300 feet, it's no louder than a conversation that we're having today.
Adam Kress:
Sure.
Taylor Alberstadt:
And last, I think we all know this is coming, it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when and how, there will be regulations around being greener. And with an all-electric solution, zero operational emissions is always going to be more significant than reduced emissions, as we talk about using SAF, or we talk about using a hybrid solution. So emissions in an all-electric solution, operationally are zero.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So there's lots of benefits and you've detailed them well, and the technology frankly exists today to do this, and we're getting close to seeing some of these first flights from eVTOL companies, but there must be some drawbacks. What do we need to overcome, and why don't we have all this already?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah, we're running the race, we're making progress, we're not across the finish line. So there are challenges associated with these type of flights. And the first, similar to how Phil outlined the hydrogen portion, is the infrastructure. And that's necessary to support battery charging or battery swapping. And that will be expensive and complex. You're going to need to land these vehicles at what we're calling vertiports. So vertical ports, not different than you would board an airplane at an airport, this is where you'd go to board a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle. And just as we saw with the advent of electric vehicles, you may not have your charging stations exactly where you need them.
Adam Kress:
Sure.
Taylor Alberstadt:
And to go a step further, all chargers may not be compatible, there's not standardization in there. So the entire infrastructure side is still a work process. I'd say second is, not all batteries are created equal. And there's a couple interesting points when you talk about battery chemistry. There is energy density, which you can relate to the amount of energy that's in a battery. So a car example is, how big is your fuel tank, can it hold 12 gallons, can hold 20 gallons? So energy density with a battery, and then power density, and think about that as how much power can you pull from that battery at any given moment. And both of those have trade-offs. And I think that's what's unique about this space right now is, all of the vehicles that we're seeing being designed, have unique requirements, some need more power at takeoff, some want to have an extended range. And each of these battery chemistries can be designed for that particular mission, which means there's not a one size fits all.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So right now with batteries, it's still up in the air on what will be the best combination of energy density and power density. And I would say just two more drawbacks, not to be too negative, because we spent significant time on the pros, there are cons as well. Batteries aren't quite there in terms of range. To your point, it is true, there are vehicles, smaller drones, and some early air taxis that are operating all-electric. Unfortunately, the batteries aren't yet to a state to be able to operate at extended range. And that's where a hybrid solution comes in, because you can use a turbo generator to take some of the strain off the battery, and even use a turbo generator's electricity to recharge a battery in flight, which then can compliment the infrastructure by not needing as much time charging, not needing to be on the ground as long.
Taylor Alberstadt:
And lastly, one of the big challenges as we talk about the pro of there being regulations and forcing us to be more sustainable, the con is the question marks around certification. To your point, we've been flying jet engines for a long time, Phil said people are very comfortable with the technology that they have. The FAA, EASA, regulators globally are going to need to figure out what the certification basis will be for these novel means of propulsion.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Well, I'm curious, you talked about there's these handful of companies that are getting close to their first flights, but at the same time, there's challenges on a broader scale with, well, access to vertiports, compatibility with charging. Do you envision in the long run that there's going to have to be a few dominant players? We have Boeing, we have Airbus, a handful of companies that makes business jets, there's not dozens of these big players out there, creating airframes and putting things in flight is incredibly complex. Do you think we're moving toward eventually a shakeout of these initial players? And I suppose if we go back to Tesla and look at them, they became the obvious dominant player in all-electric vehicles. So do you think aviation's headed that way as well?
Taylor Alberstadt:
You're exactly right. Not only is technology challenging, and I mentioned just off the cuff, over 200 players are trying to really be active in this space. There's not going to be 200 different types of air vehicles and companies manufacturing these, there will be consolidation. And part of that is, all these OEMs may not get there technically, the designs may not play out, but this is aerospace, and things are very expensive, you're talking upwards of $500 million to get prototype and early production.
Adam Kress:
Yeah.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So there will be a shakeout. And certainly over the next handful of years, you will have the early entrants that break through. Will they be able to sustain their dominance as you have people who are now able to go on that paved road, through certification, understanding their vehicle design, what worked, what didn't, coming up right behind them? So I think you'll have survival of some of the early entrants, but you'll really have a significant leap when that second set of OEMs comes in, that's been able to stand on the shoulders of those that came first.
Adam Kress:
Sure. Okay, makes sense. So with Honeywell's development plans in particular on electric and hybrid-electric, where does it stand now, where's the main focus and where's it headed?
Taylor Alberstadt:
We're all in on both fronts. From an electric propulsion point of view, last year we signed a strategic alliance with Denso Corporation, who is a Japanese global tier-1 automotive company. And the easiest way to explain them is, they are the Honeywell in the automotive space. They provide content across vehicles for a range of customers all around the world. And we chose to work with them specifically to address that AAM market that I'm talking about. You bring together Honeywell's storied history with certification and integration expertise, the knowledge of aerospace, and you couple that with Denso's ability to mass produce, to serve at an automotive scale, and to do that with automation.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So we're very excited with that combination in the electric propulsion space. And together we're developing a core family of electric propulsion units, and these will serve a broad range of vehicle and power classes within the electric space. Excitingly, we will be starting testing on our first EPU in the next few months, down in our Mexicali systems integration lab. So this is coming to reality. We're all in with our partner, we're all in with building prototypes, and very soon moving into production.
Adam Kress:
Okay.
Taylor Alberstadt:
On the turbo generator side, when we talk about hybrid, Honeywell has this storied history in internal combustion engines, whether that be APUs, turboshaft, turboprop engines, and we're bringing to market to state-of-the-art generators. I mentioned the megawatt generator, and its little brother, a 250-kilowatt generator. And we can pair those via a gearbox with any number of the internal combustion engines to create a perfect solution from a turbo generator point of view, to really match what our customers needs are. So we're moving forward full bore with electric and hybrid-electric offerings.
Adam Kress:
All right, excellent. And not to forget about hydrogen, I want to bring Phil back in for a minute. And I'll ask the same question to each of you guys, and, Phil, you can go first, but in your respective spaces, what's one big thing you want to accomplish this year that'll make a difference and help move all of this forward?
Phil Robinson:
Okay, you asked for one big thing, but I'm going to give you two. The big thing in the drone space is to help our customers go from doing trials and proving concepts, to actually rolling out services and generating revenue. And that's going to be a really important inflection, and I believe 2022 is the year.
Adam Kress:
Got it.
Phil Robinson:
In the manned-aircraft space, our big goal is to establish a operational fuel cell lab in our facility in the Czech Republic, to be able to actually run manned-aircraft-scale fuel cells, and prove their components and prove their reliability and their performance, and be able to start integrating with larger pieces of the system.
Adam Kress:
All right, excellent. Taylor, on the hybrid-electric and electric side, what's the one big thing for you in 2022?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Can I do two like Phil?
Adam Kress:
No, absolutely not. Yes.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So we've been doing, internally at Honeywell with our partners Denso, so much work over the past few years. It will be very exciting to publicly announce launch customers on both sides, for turbo generators, for EPUs, a lot of that has been behind the scenes, being able to bring that forward in the market. And the publicity associated with not specifically us, but the momentum that drives this space forward, it's really exciting, because we're trying not only to support this new market, we're trying to build it, and these offerings and Honeywell's portfolio allow us to do that. So really exciting to bring some of these things to market, to announce awards. I would say the work that we're doing in our labs, the integration work, actually doing ground tests, planning flight tests, this is becoming real, it's no longer paper designs. And that's what 2022 holds for us.
Adam Kress:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it feels closer and closer to all becoming real, and like we talked about earlier on, these massive changes in aerospace where we're really on the precipice.
Taylor Alberstadt:
That's exactly right.
Adam Kress:
Yeah, it's exciting. All right. One last question for each of you guys, and I'll start with Phil. Of course, we call the podcast Aerospace Unplugged. So when you're not thinking about hydrogen and fuel cells, and you're just at home unplugging, what do you like to do for fun?
Phil Robinson:
That's an easy one for me, because when I want to get unplugged, I plug in. And I plug in my bass guitar into an amplifier, I play bass for a rock and roll band, and it's really, really fun for me to be able to do something that's very different from technology. And in Honeywell, I'm really often thinking about what's going to happen in 10 years, and 10 months, and 10 weeks, and when I'm playing with the band, I'm thinking about what's happening right now, and you have to be all in on what's going on around you. And so it's really a great way for me to unplug and pursue a passion besides technology.
Adam Kress:
That's awesome. You're the second person that I've had on the podcast that said something like, that also plays in a band, and has this music and aviation connection. So I think it was Larry Anglisano we had, who was on, who's a aviation journalist, who was talking how he plays as well. So I might have to hook you guys up.
Phil Robinson:
That'd be great.
Adam Kress:
It could be [inaudible 00:46:58] of a new band. How about you, Taylor, what do you do to unplug?
Taylor Alberstadt:
Yeah, it's tough to unplug from this space because so much is happening every day, new first flights, new companies coming out of stealth mode. But I do have two kids under the age of five and a wonderful wife, so that takes a large chunk of my time, but really unplugging for me is getting to Margaritaville. And I've been to 43 Jimmy Buffet concerts.
Adam Kress:
More music.
Taylor Alberstadt:
So I guess you could call me a parrothead. I would be the one in the stands watching Phil jam out. And that's how I'm related to music, but I'm not the artist, I'm more of the observer.
Adam Kress:
All right. Well, thank you guys so much for being on the show today. This was a good one I think, and very educational. I feel like you could go for hours and hours when you start thinking about what's to come and all these cool advances that are on the horizon. So I wanted to mention one other podcast that we've recorded too that's in the same vein as this, but we did a separate one a couple months ago that was devoted specifically to sustainable aviation fuel. So if you want to scroll back a little bit, whichever service you're streaming us through today, you could find the one that we did on sustainable aviation fuel as well. The company's been very focused on sustainability initiatives across the board. So we've dived into a few of them today. So thanks again everyone out there for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Aerospace Unplugged.
Taylor Alberstadt:
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