Questions for Roei Ganzarski

摘要

1 How did you arrive at your current position? Ganzarski: Early in 2018 I got a phone call out of the blue from a representative of Clermont Group, a Singapore-based business group that invests in a variety of industries all over the world. One of its investments was in an Australian R&D effort refining and developing electric motors. Those engineers came up with a 350-hp motor that many suggested could be ideal for the aviation industry. At that point, they pivoted the outfit as a commercial entity and invited me to come have a look. I went to Australia and after ten minutes of meeting the amazing engineers and seeing the prototype they had built, I was sold. I knew that leading this effort would be my next role since, if successful, it could change the face of aviation and transportation. We moved the operation to Redmond since it's a hub of both aerospace and of innovation. I still don't know how they got my name.Ganzarski: Commercial aviation is not serving well what we call "middle mile" travel, those of trips of 50 to 1,000 mi. The carriers can't make money with smaller aircraft, so they use aircraft with 75 seats or more, and small or medium sized cities can't generate enough traffic to support them. So, service declines or disappears while ticket prices increase, sometimes by a lot - $500 for a 250-mi. roundtrip is not uncommon. As a result, people spend days on the highway. Meanwhile, electric propulsion is ideal for 5-to-12-passenger aircraft operating trips of up to 125 mi. in our magnified, or retrofitted, aircraft or 500 mi. in a clean-sheet design like Eviation's Alice using today's battery technology. Doing so can reduce operating costs while reconnecting cities and towns with fast, frequent, affordable and clean commercial service. It can help make small, wonderfully livable locales economic engines.