Welcome, everyone, to the latest podcast edition of Reimagining Mobility. I'm here with Jose Rubio from our Fuel Cell Canada organization. Welcome, Jose, and thank you for joining me today. Tell me a little bit. What are you guys doing in Canada? Yeah, we're we're a team of about 50 people, 80, 90%. And engineers and scientists based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, which is a global hub for PEM fuel cell design. So we do exactly that. We designed fuel cell stacks for AVL and AVL customer worldwide.
Very good. And tell me why. PEM why not SOFC ? So I hear the battle constantly, right? SOFC Yeah, I know he does. There is an issue about, Hey,PEM I can put a whole lot more different fuels in it and, you know, limited. So why did we choose PEM as the solution, so to speak, or to technology for our fuel cell stacks? Yeah. First, I think probably the biggest the biggest point is PEM is completely green can run off renewable hydrogen. So there's zero carbon in any of the process.
Now for sure, it depends on where you get the hydrogen from, but that's where we're talking about the hydrogen infrastructure, the landscape that's developing to make sure we have that that fully green fuel coming in. So PEM fuel cells run exclusively on hydrogen, And in our case, we, of course, turn that hydrogen into electricity, heat and water, which are the main byproducts of a fuel cell stack compared to a SOFC system.
The benefit the main benefit of PEM is that it won't runs at low temperature and it is very fast to start up and shut down, whereas a SOFC system because it needs an associate C system because it needs a large warm up time. Those tend to be more amenable to like large installations for steady state requirements, whereas a system can be very dynamic.
But really, so those are the two big things it runs on completely fuel hydrogen only and, and the temperature requirements that make one have to start up and it takes time to get running fully, whereas a can come up to speed almost instantly. Really? Within a few seconds. Mm hmm.
So really then a kind of SOFC probably a great application maybe for a stationary power system, but once it's running, it's running for whatever, seven, 8 hours until the power's back versus the dependent is more for, let's say, mobility applications, where the power demands vary consistently depending on your driving or maneuver cycle or whatever. Correct. And and the power
demand is quick as well. Yep. So, yeah, we're seeing quite a lot of movement in the marine space, the long haul truck space. I can imagine that'll expand to to some stationary as well. And there is already. But, but in our case, that's where we see the biggest areas being in large commercial trucks. And. I've read over the last couple along several times about drones that they're talking about in fuel cell and not just drones, meaning people.
So air taxis or whatever you want to call it, air mobility drones, but also for smaller ones. So for packages. Any any experience or opinion on that and on that area? Yeah, actually, we've been working on on some of those that you're mentioning. Actually the which it's a slightly different than an automotive stock. Primarily the biggest automotive marine stock.
The primary difference between those is most PEM stocks that require really high powered demand are liquid cooled because they generate them by liquid in a drone or aerospace application weight is more critical. All that size liquid is heavy. So those stacks tend to be lower power density, but running on air cooled, which eliminates a more complex system as well. So it can be there's certainly some some benefit to that.
And you can imagine, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion in like pollution generated from aerospace like airplanes and aerospace output. So there is a move within that industry as well to explore running like PEM fuel cell stacks. We were just at CES and we highlighted one of our from your team's fuel cell stacks and got a lot of attention, quite frankly. Lots of people, I think, on one side interested what in the world is this box on the other side?
Oh, my gosh, I had no idea you AVL were doing this. We've been doing this for years, obviously. And this is now, I believe, what the second generation that we showcase, their third generation we've done. And at the moment we've done really like three full stack designs since we came here was showcase. There was the first one that we developed.
However, that's currently the one that's available on the market that we're working on on main projects, but we're already advanced at another level and started work on an a next, more power dense application. Although the one that that you showcased is really already one of the top power density stocks that you can get. All right. So so we've done I mean, the team's progressed in five years, three stock designs. That's pretty rare that you'll see in other fuel cell companies.
The benefit the reason we can do that is we work with all the suppliers. We work primarily to the a sample phase, although we do have some SOP projects, but that allows us to turn over an advanced designs much more quickly than you'll see in other fuel cell companies out there. All right. Tell me a little bit of what what some of the whatever watt per liter guides that you're trying to achieve. What's the current, let's say, on the market leading edge? Where are we at?
Where do you see we can get to in the next, let's say, five years based on what you know today from the let's call it technology roadmap or ability of where we know we can shave off additional inefficiencies to get more efficient? For sure. Maybe just to tie back to the aerospace then and I'll bring it back to on air cooled stocks. For air cooled stocks, we see the market kind of the top end is around half a kilowatt per liter.
Okay. We're working on a design that that is we expect that will double that to one kilowatt per liter. Now for on the earth applications, our stock that that we showcased there at CES is around four point something kilowatts per liter on the low of 4.2, 4.3, 4.1.
And the packet and where you run it and this is assessed at the standard developed by the Chinese marketplace, which is at 0.6 volts, you can always make those numbers read a higher value or spit out a higher value if you don't evaluate them at point six volts. Okay, we're doing that standard level. So that's pretty important in this stock that is in this low fours kilowatts per liter is one of the highest ones that are available in the marketplace.
The next iteration that we're working on will improve that 30, 40, possibly 50% depending on the application. So we're talking about that number being in the high fives, mid-size to high fives within the next several years. Now, you will see if you look in the marketplace and Google stacked power density, high power density, you will hear numbers that are very high. The problem is those aren't taken at that standard level.
We can make our numbers also meaningful If we don't take that standard level. So it's a it's a bit of a trick that's sometimes used. But I'm glad there is the Chinese government has released the standard that we can all compare that and it's a fair standard. So yeah. So you're bringing up Chinese and Fuelcells I see. Or I have seen personally, certainly quite a bit of movement globally now with with fuel cell and stack related technologies. Europe, a lot of stationary power. Right.
We see there we see it in the U.S. now, as you mentioned, for the mobility space. And I've seen it in Asia, but not necessarily in China as much. So is China leading them that you're saying they're setting a standard or you're just saying this is a good standard that many people are using? Just because China stepped up and used it? . I think a lot of the big China has, first of all, more trucks, busses running on fuel cells than anywhere else in the world. I would even say combined.
They're more is probably just more quiet to our Western. And so they do have a lot of momentum and the government has spent a lot of money to support getting hydrogen, doing development projects, demo projects to try to decarbonize the the the the grid and the the distribution system in China, which is largely based on coal.
So there is a lot so any fuel cell company that you look up will have at least one project with someone in China because they're spending significant amount of money to get this going. Yeah. Now, interesting. So going back to your team, I know we've updated the facilities. We have a significant amount of testing capability there, but correct me if I'm wrong, we're really focusing on the stack, right? Not necessarily on the complete, let's say, power plant, but really on the stack.
And that's what we want to do because we really want to become expert at the stack level as a technology license provider, but also as an ability to make AVL as a as a technology provider smarter to not take fuel cell stack as a black box and then integrate it into a larger hydrogen based power plant, but really become expert from, let's say, cradle to grave. Explain a little bit on that. Maybe. That's right.
When we started, what specifically sets our location apart as we are the Global Center of Excellence in AVL for PEM fuel cell stack that's based in Vancouver because this has been a hub since the beginning 20, 30 years of the early technology development. So that's created a significant ecosystem within the area of talent that works on this, that knows how to push the edges and achieve the best power density, durability, all the key requirements. So yeah, that's right.
Our our expertise is designing the bipolar plates, the catalyst materials that deliver the best performance and durability. In addition to doing the design, we also do the prototyping of those parts. We build stocks and we have a hydrogen safe lab right behind me that is able to test those stocks for performance and durability. We also provide an important service that doesn't exist very much within the fuel cell world. World is that we can take other customer stocks and test them in our lab.
So not our designs and not our OEMs that we're working for, but we can run testing as a service here at AVL, which I think is is quite important because that's generally very limited within the landscape of where you can get out there, a specific case where you see that happening, it might take 3 to 5 years for you to build a facility, get a hydrogen certification to run that in your lab and you know, that's that's slow.
a you can potential customers and ones that we've actually had come through here have developed a stack they just have no way to test that. So we can help with not just providing in the facility but trained engineers that know how to operate them can recommend optimum operating strategies for those stacks. So it's it's been a good journey, but we're we're now very ready to test lab available to outside customers. Good and maybe to work to wrap things up.
If you look out ten years, maybe based on the trajectory you've had over the last ten years, but look over ten years and say it's not proportionally but disproportionally ride increasing work. Can we get to I mean, you said we're in the mid let's say five and a half maybe will push it six kilowatt hours per liter. Well, where are we going to be in in, in ten years and underestimate ocean. I think that's going to level off. You know how off we can. You know, I don't see that at most linear.
Okay. It'll level off and where it'll come down to is distinguishing your technology for durability. Like I'm pushing 20,000, 30000 hours. No. As soon as hydrogen infrastructure becomes available. Now that's a big part of the of the whole ecosystem. We have some investments within APL that the scope of the market in mobility is probably like 20 30%. That means 70% of that is stationary electrolysis generating hydrogen so that you can use it in mobility. Or very important. Operations.
So in those applications, durability is even more important because it's just sitting there idle generating hydrogen. I'm talking a little bit about electrolysis, first generation instead of the consumption, but that's where I think the market will go is is really more focusing instead of squeezing out the most power. You know, we don't need an F1 car, we need a Corolla that lasts a long time. It's extremely reliable. So I think that's where it's going to end up. So you don't.
So again, putting you on the spot here on the where are you going to say we're going to get to eight kilowatt hours or even that's a push. I think that's the push on is a really big seven. Okay. You know, if you if you assess it at a standard level, I think that's that's six, seven, maybe around there in ten years, because I think that market's not going to push for as much the extreme power because we can already get there in the power to make that durable contain leaks.
I mean, hydrogen is tiny. It's hard to contain leaks. Every fuel cell stock, I think this is an important point you're arguing gets a lot of publicity for being dangerous or things like that. It's really much less dangerous than a liquid fuel like gasoline, because hydrogen disperses very quickly and it disappears right away. It doesn't stay concentrated, but because it's so small, hydrogen every through cell stock has even the tiniest little bit of leaks. Those are acceptable.
It's all about making sure that these levels are contained and diluted about base level. So it's okay. I wouldn't worry about the stock. I've got leaks a tiny bit. I'm talking about durability where this becomes an issue in terms of emissions that are not safe and and there will be regulatory requirements that control those emissions level. But it's really, again, just doubling down on that. It's the durability I think is going to distinguish who were in the market in 20 years, 30 years now.
And then really final question, because you just touched upon something regulation. How in your opinion, how regulated is the market, right, from a from a safety, from a from a testing requirement? I mean, we see this a little bit with with automotive batteries, right? We're learning very fast and things getting at a very, very quick point. And the next thing is recyclability. So there is a traceability for cells, a requirement in Europe now active or going to be active soon.
As it relates to how do you have to re recycle a battery. So that ties into and out of designs that we also do for our partners. How is certainty in the fuel cell stack? Just fuel cell stack. So yeah, it is. I mean, certainly that technology is ahead of the regulations at the moment. There are we are seeing requirements being established Initially. I think those requirements are more stringent that they need to be because people to understand the technology. So they're coming to. The extreme.
Three end of it, which can be, you know, navigating that landscape a little bit, a little bit complicated.
But but I think that'll come down as people as we get more knowledge out there about hydrogen, the benefits of it are understood and people understand that it's it's it's currently in some some minds out there associated with like bad things that have happened where it's really and there's been a lot of progress in that over the last couple of years focusing on the benefits of that and that that's where I think that the regulations will will follow to to be more or reasonable.
Right. Okay. Very good. Thanks for your time. Yeah, no problem. I feel really appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, for believing and thanks for listening. To Reimagine Mobility Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and tell a friend.