UniversalHydrogen, a Pioneer in Hydrogen-Powered Flight, Declares Bankruptcy
TapTechNews June 30 news, the airline UniversalHydrogen, which completed some hydrogen-powered flight tests in Moses Lake last March and was one of the pioneers in replacing fossil fuel flights with sustainable, zero-emission technologies, has finally declared bankruptcy due to failed fundraising and burned through the $100 million (TapTechNews note: currently about RMB 728 million) in investment funds it had previously raised.
Their goal is to power airplane engines with hydrogen instead of jet fuel. The successful first test flight last year in Moses Lake was hailed by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee as one of the breakthroughs in the state's clean energy field.
In March this year, Fast Company magazine included UniversalHydrogen in its list of The Most Innovative Companies of 2024. Last month, Aviation Week magazine reported that this zero-emission startup is busy taking the propulsion system test to a new level and plans to conduct 10 new flight tests.
However, Mark Cousin, the chairman and CEO of UniversalHydrogen, said in a letter to shareholders on Thursday that due to the failure to raise more funds from new investors, the board officially decided to disband the company.
We couldn't get enough equity or debt financing to continue operating, nor could we obtain a viable acquisition offer or a similar strategic exit transaction, Cousin wrote.
He said the company had recently approached existing investors to participate in a rights offering plan but failed to generate enough interest. We are extremely proud of the work the team has done to create the first commercially viable hydrogen-powered aviation ecosystem, Cousin concluded in his letter, and we sincerely hope that these efforts will continue to exist as part of a future entity.
UniversalHydrogen was founded by clean energy expert Paul Eremenko, who had previously served as the chief technology officer of Airbus and firmly believed that the climate change issue will pose an existential crisis for air transport in the next few decades. With his personal charm and technical expertise, the company obtained financing in Silicon Valley.
Eremenko is still listed as the CEO on the company's official website, but he told the Seattle Times that he had resigned at the end of April. The letter to shareholders was signed by the company's former chief technology officer Cousin as the CEO.
UniversalHydrogen has always faced extremely huge obstacles to success. This Los Angeles-based company not only needs to design a hydrogen-powered propulsion system, but also needs to create a new logistics infrastructure from scratch in order to transport hydrogen fuel at the airport.
They also need to deal with the reality that hydrogen fuel takes up much more space on the airplane than jet fuel, which will reduce the cabin space.
Another huge obstacle is that UniversalHydrogen's project depends on a large amount of reliable green hydrogen. Green hydrogen must be produced using electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar energy in order to achieve zero emissions in the process. Most of the hydrogen used in today's world is produced through natural gas, and this process will produce a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
At present, the production of green hydrogen is very limited, and a large amount of investment is still needed to expand the scale.
The UniversalHydrogen team designed a hydrogen-powered propulsion system so that it can be retrofit on regional passenger jets. They also developed an ecosystem at the airport, through w hich hydrogen will be transported by truck and loaded in large cylindrical modules that can be directly loaded onto the plane.
In March 2023, in Moses Lake, a small group of investors and media reporters witnessed a short test flight of the de Havilland Canada Dash8-300 turboprop airplane modified by UniversalHydrogen, aiming to prove the feasibility of this technology.
In this flight, one engine was driven by a hydrogen fuel cell, and the other was driven by conventional jet fuel.
Later that year, UniversalHydrogen moved its flight operations to the Mojave Desert in California.
Meanwhile, in Toulouse on the other side of the Atlantic, the company is modifying a larger regional airplane ATR72 to develop a movable liquid hydrogen module that can be transported by truck. Their idea is to create the necessary infrastructure to transport hydrogen to airports around the world.
Cousin told shareholders in the letter that the company's French division will also be liquidated.
The bankruptcy of UniversalHydrogen leaves only one major player left in the hydrogen-powered airplane field: ZeroAvia. This company, also headquartered in California, has R & D facilities at Paine Airport in Everett, and a team of about 40 people is working hard to produce a hydrogen-powered propulsion system.