20210329 Monday Report
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ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS, LLC MONDAY REPORT VOL 1, WEEK 8 March 29, 2021 ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS, LLC COPYRIGHT 2021 © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 20210329 ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS Monday Report Vol 1 Week 8 Telephone. +1. 615.648.7566 Responses to: [email protected] Monday Report March 29, 2021 Welcome to Easter Week. This past week has been busy, here are the highlights. ● We established an Executive Team o Edwin Brenninkmeyer o Bill Minkoff o Arthur Moritz o Bill “Shoes” Johnson o Paul Mulcahy o Mat Garretson This week we will: ● We will set up HR and accounting processes. ● Begin building data bases o Advisors o Potential Clients o Industry players o Governmental agencies ● Begin to send website building blocks to JB ● Begin discussions with www.t1performance.com ● Review and possibly sign a contract with UChicago for summer interns ● Formulate arrangements with Dr. Johnson for collaboration with Lynn University ● We will try to have google docs for collaboration ready by Friday. ● Note Company Phone Number o +1 (615) 648-7566 Monday Report 20210329. From Edwin: 1. Connected with Duncan Walker, CEO / Co-founder of Skyports. https://skyports.net/team/ The five things that keep him awake at night the most are: a. Which technology will win and which is the most viable. b. Airspace issues for operating these aircraft. c. Regulatory issues. d. Social acceptance including noise, safety / security and environment: He envisages city centre to city centre travel, so these aircraft will have to pass directly over densely populated areas. Incidentally, Peter Schmidt has done some research on this and believes that noise isn’t the issue – it’s social acceptability. The concept here is that 20210329 ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS Monday Report Vol 1 Week 8 Telephone. +1. 615.648.7566 Responses to: [email protected] people can quite happily tolerate a lawn mower or hedge strimmer as this is something they all need, use and value but a helicopter which is beyond the financial means of many is considered unacceptable, even though the decibel level may be significantly lower than the hedge cutter. e. Availability of capital, although he believes this is less of an issue now than it was in 2018 when he launched the business. 2. Next week: a. Will speak with James Arnold from Arrival (www.arrival.com). Similar idea in a different industry and there may be some synergies. b. I would like to put together the framework for an presentation (could form the basis of an external one too, in future) to collate some of our ideas and thinking and to further structure ourselves. Some initial thoughts: i. Vision / Mission / Goals. ii. Brief bios of all involved and what areas of expertise they bring to the table. iii. The potential for industry partnerships along the lines discussed with Shoes and Bill Minkoff today. iv. Potential areas for us to specialise in and provide advice to. v. Identification of any gaps in team capability that we either manage or proactively aim to fill. vi. Roadmap, budgets, next steps, milestones. (Perhaps also identify next steps for Duncan Walker / Skyports to keep him engaged.) Suggested Reading Things we found of inerest 1. Battery Technology. A. Commercial Lithium metal Battery start up partnering with GM for e-cars (March 2021) SolidEnergy Solutions (SES) of Woburn, Mass – cut the weight and by 2023 Ultium batter packs will be prototyped. GM says by mid decade the battery packs projected to cost 60% less than todays with 2X the energy density. They also have been able to develop an electrolyte coating for lithium metal foil that works at room temperature (previous lithium metal batteries would only work when heated to 175o F. Technology is still a number of years away and not without risk. GM building a joint venture Ultium batter plant in Ohio with LG Energy Solution, a unit of LG Chem. May have a second factory also. GM has significant investment in this effort. NOTE: Using AI-powered battery management software to optimize EV performance and safety. Article: GM announces partnership with lithium metal battery startup | Driving Article: GM unveils plans for lithium-metal batteries that could boost EV range (yahoo.com) B. New Stable High-Voltage Long-Life Solid-Batteries. (Feb 2021) Uses Sodium, Yttrium, Zirconium and Choloride (NYZC) built from Na3YCl6 – well know material that is a poor conductor. Adding Zirconium increases the volume of the cell battery unit. No info on power density. The technology has been licensed by UNIGRID, a 20210329 ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS Monday Report Vol 1 Week 8 Telephone. +1. 615.648.7566 Responses to: [email protected] startup co-founded by UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Zheng Chen; Erik Wu, a Ph.D. alumnus from Meng’s research group; and Darren H. S. Tan, one of Meng’s Ph.D. students. Meng is the company’s technical advisor Note: Used machine learning to find the best compounds. Article: New Material Breakthrough for Stable High-Voltage Long-Life Solid-State Batteries (scitechdaily.com) C. Battery breakthrough for Electric Aircraft (July 2020) Article: Battery Breakthrough to Give Flight to Electric Aircraft and Boost Long-Range Electric Cars (scitechdaily.com) Overcoming the issue of dendrite formation. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) with Carnegie Mellon University have found a new type of soft, solid electrolytes made from both polymers and ceramics (soft polymers of intrinsic microporosity – PIMS) that suppress dendrites before they anc propagate and cause battery failure. This may allow the drop in replacement of the graphite anodes currently used with lithium-foils with PIM composite electrolyte as a laminate between a lithium metal anodes and the battery separator metal anodes and increasing energy storage capacity. Researchers believe this approach may be useful for electric aircraft. An awardee under the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) IONICS program, 24M Technologies, has integrated these materials into larger format batteries for both EVs and electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOL. D. “All-Solid-State” Battery Background (Nov 2017) Current battery tech is lithium ion – expensive and as a flammable liquid creating possible safety hazard. New technology based on sodium (cheap alternative to lithium) being researched at Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and the Unitversity of Geneva (UNIGE). Potential for more energy storage, higher safety and reliability. Batteries 101. Anode (negative pole), Cathode (positive pole) and electrolyte. Lithium ion batteries use lithium liquid as the electrolyte creates the ion that moves from cathode to anode. Solid lithium dendrites may fore and induce short circuits that can cause a fire. The current batteries prevent this by using a graphite anode vice lithium metal (very light – increased energy storage). Empa/UNIGE making a solid electrolyte to block the dendrite formation and then use a metal anode allowing safe storage of more energy. They also found that a boron based substance (closo-borane) had properties that allowed the sodium ions to circulate freely without risk of catching fire while recharging. As of the article date – needed to extend the testing to various conditions before moving forward to market. Article: “All-Solid-State” Battery Offers Better Performance and Improved Safety (scitechdaily.com) 20210329 ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY ADVISORS Monday Report Vol 1 Week 8 Telephone. +1. 615.648.7566 Responses to: [email protected] U.S. AAM Market To Generate $115B Annually by 2035. A joint study from Deloitte and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) predicts that the U.S. advanced air mobility (AAM) market, which includes flying taxis and cargo drones, will generate sales of $115 billion annually by 2035—equivalent to 0.5 percent of U.S. GDP. This emerging industry is also expected to create more than 280,000 “high paying” jobs in the same time frame, accounting for approximately 8 percent of the aerospace and defense workforce, the new report adds. For the full article see: https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2021-03-19/us-aam-market-generate-115b-a nnually-2035 Embraer Launches Urban Air Mobility Division Called Eve Embraer is stepping up its plans to develop eVTOL aircraft with the formation this week of a new subsidiary called Eve Urban Air Mobility Solutions. The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer said the new U.S.-based division is working on “a portfolio of solutions to enable the urban air mobility (UAM) market,” confirming that these include an eVTOL it has been developing in stealth mode for the past four years through its EmbraerX advanced technology unit For the full article see: https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2020-10-15/embraer-launches-urban -air-mobility-division-called-eve Surf Air Mobility Lands $200M IPO-linked Funding Boost . Surf Air Mobility, which was formed alongside Surf Air’s acquisition of aviation marketplace BlackBird earlier this year with the aim to accelerate zero-emission flight, today announced a $200 million investment commitment from Luxembourg-based Global Emerging Markets Group (GEM) to take the company public. The $200 million commitment comes with an advance of $50 million, immediately available on the first day of trading; further tranches can then be drawn at the company’s option over a three-year period. For the