ZeroAvia Bets On Hydrogen For Electric Air Travel

Is hydrogen the best path to zero emission flight?

When I first sat down with ZeroAvia founder, Valery Miftakhov, to talk about his newest venture I admit I was a little skeptical.

That's because we were there to talk about hydrogen fuel cells being used to power commercial aircraft in two to three years time. I'm not a big fan of hydrogen-powered cars for a number of reasons, the biggest being I don't believe we'll ever build out a hydrogen refueling infrastructure that could refuel the millions of cars on the roads. We'd basically need to replace the 168,000 gas stations in the US with H2 stations, which cost between 1.5 and 2 million dollars each.  It would just cost way too much to do so, and who would pay for them?

Couple that with the fact that electricity is already ubiquitous - we just need to install the charging stations. That advantage alone is enough to propel battery-electric vehicles over HFC cars. However, at the same time, I also thought hydrogen fuel cells may be one of the answers for long haul trucking. There wouldn't need to be many H2 stations installed; just a couple hundred across the country in strategic truck stop locations might be enough.

ZeroAvia's founder, Valery Miftakhov

Aviation makes the use of hydrogen even easier. The airplanes have set routes, and always depart and arrive at an airport. Installing hydrogen refueling stations at airports would be even easier than doing so at truck stops. In fact, the more I chatted with Miftakhov, the more this concept made sense. 

If the name sounds familiar, it's because we've mentioned Miftakhov here before. Valery Miftakhov was the founder of eMotorWerks, the California-based company that pioneered smart-grid EV chargers, introducing the JuiceBox Pro 40 EVSE. He sold the company to Enel in 2017 and started ZeroAvia.

“Due to the rise of carbon emissions, we wanted to have a real impact on the aviation industry with sustainable methods of travel. For that, we needed to target a significantly larger aircraft, which is able to supply travelers with relatively long-distance destinations.” - ZeroAvia founder, Valery Miftakhov

Miftakhov then set out tackle what he saw as the next big problem in the electrification of commercial transportation: aviation. He took the approach of a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain because it has four times more energy density than the best electric batteries available today, and provides the lowest operating costs. That would enable zero-emission commercial aviation now, not sometime in the future when batteries are lighter and energy-dense enough to be used to fully-power large commercial aircraft. 

Miftakhov doesn't envision becoming an aircraft manufacturer. Instead, ZeroAvia is a powertrain company, working with existing aviation and other manufacturers and aviation operators, offering a clean, lower-cost powertrain choice, fitting seamlessly into the existing large markets and business models of the aviation industry.

“Hydrogen fuel cell systems are currently about four times more energy-dense than the best available batteries, even with compressed gas H2 storage. In five years, we actually expect liquid hydrogen storage to be safety-qualified in aircraft, allowing us to achieve 1,000+ mile ranges in even larger aircraft.” - ZeroAvia founder, Valery Miftakhov

Therefore, existing aircraft OEMs will be the company’s partners, not its competition. This approach allows ZeroAvia to focus on the real bottleneck in decarbonizing aviation: the powertrain. There are plenty of great aircraft manufacturers that build excellent, efficient airframes that will be able to accept ZeroAvia's fuel cell powertrain. 

ZeroAvia's Technology:

The Business Model:

Funding and business plan: 

Is this the future of Aviation?

We're not sure, but it does seem like it can be the present. One of the things Miftakhov seemed so excited about was that this technology is ready now, we don't have to wait years for it to be viable.

Decarbonizing aviation is critical if we want to really reduce our overall carbon emissions and aggressively take on climate change. If Miftakhov's fuel cell powertrains can accomplish that goal and save operators on fuel costs and maintenance, what's not to like about it? Let us know your thoughts on hydrogen-powered aircraft in the comments section below. 

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