![]() The cases were quietly settled in the summer of 2020. George Betak, an EMW vice president, filed two civil lawsuits against Miftakhov alleging, among other things, that Miftakhov had left his name off patents, withheld money and even faked a document to make it seem as though Betak had assigned his intellectual property rights to EMW. But Miftakhov faced legal difficulties here, too. The new direction succeeded, and in 2017 Italian energy company Enel acquired EMW for a reported $150 million. He also found demand from BMW owners to be sluggish.ĮMW then pivoted to providing chargers and a smart energy management platform. Miftakhov agreed to change its logo and marketing materials, and to refrain from suggesting it was affiliated with the carmaker. ![]() In 2012, after starting several companies and a stint at Google, he founded eMotorWerks (aka EMW) to produce electric conversion kits for the BMW 3-series.īut in 2013, BMW accused EMW of infringing its trademarks. Russian-born Miftakhov arrived in America in 1997 to study for a physics doctorate. Fuel cells are heavy and complex, hydrogen requires bulky storage and there are many technical problems for startups to solve. But that doesn’t mean you can simply drop a fuel cell into an existing aircraft. Hydrogen, by contrast, can be generated using solar or wind power, and packs quite an energetic punch.įuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen from the air in an efficient reaction that produces only electricity, heat and water. Biofuels can displace trees or food crops, while batteries are too heavy for anything more than short hops. Now the question is whether it can continue on its claimed trajectory and truly transform aviation.Īviation currently accounts for 2.5% of humanity’s carbon emissions, and could grow to a quarter of the planet’s carbon budget by 2050. government, and attracting investment from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and - just last week - British Airways. In less than four years, ZeroAvia has gone from testing aircraft parts in pickup trucks to gaining the support of the U.K. And while the Malibu is technically still a passenger aircraft, ZeroAvia has had to replace four of the Malibu’s five passenger seats to accommodate bulky hydrogen tanks and other equipment. TechCrunch has learned that batteries provided the majority of the power required for the landmark flight, and will continue to feature heavily in ZeroAvia’s longer flights and new aircraft. Miftakhov’s comments don’t quite tell the whole story. But the way the battery and hydrogen fuel cells combine is such that we are able to fly purely on hydrogen.” “There is a combination of the battery and hydrogen. “ this particular setup, not all the energy is coming from hydrogen,” said Miftakhov at a press conference directly afterwards. “While some experimental aircraft have flown using hydrogen fuel cells, the size of this aircraft shows that paying passengers could be boarding a truly zero-emission flight very soon,” added Val Miftakhov, ZeroAvia’s CEO.īut just how hydrogen-powered was it, and how close is ZeroAvia to flying passengers? The modified Piper Malibu propeller plane was now the largest hydrogen-powered aircraft in the world, wrote the company. last September, the company claimed a “major breakthrough” with the first-ever hydrogen fuel cell flight of a commercial-size aircraft. The technology will be tested on the diesel-electric multiple units on the 89-km Sonipat-Jind section of the Northern Railway.When ZeroAvia’s six-seater aircraft completed an eight-minute flight from Cranfield Airfield in the U.K. Indian Railways aims to retrofit diesel-powered diesel-electric multiple units into a hydrogen fuel-based train, saving ₹23 million (~$309,718) per year. In January 2021, the Indian Railways Organization of Alternate Fuel (IROAF) invited bids to develop a hydrogen fuel cell-based hybrid power train for retrofitting the 700 HP diesel-hydraulic locomotives running on the Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge section in Himachal Pradesh. We are excited to grow our fuel cell business in India and to power the first hydrogen-powered, zero-emission passenger trains in the Indian market,” said David Mucciacciaro, Chief Commercial Officer of Ballard. “Our progress in decarbonizing the rail market is just beginning, as we work with leading rolling stock manufacturers, integrators and operators globally. With leading technology and strong project economics, we are optimistic about the future of zero-emission rail transport,” said Kasyap Reddy, Managing Director of Medha Servo Drives. “Rail transportation is a critical piece of infrastructure across India, and we are proud to be taking the first steps to decarbonize this facet of our economy.
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