Tesla Will Enter eVTOL/UAM Market, Morgan Stanley Is Sure

[MEDICALJMP]

Tesla Will Enter eVTOL/UAM Market, Morgan Stanley Is Sure

by Eva Fox July 15, 2021

Morgan Stanley is confident that Tesla will enter the Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing/Urban Air Mobility (eVTOL/UAM) market and published the analysis in a 17-page report titled "Tesla Aviation: Not 'If' But 'When'? Analyst Adam Jonas says the potential skills transferability and network adjacencies are too strong to ignore.

Although Tesla's management openly denies rumors that they want to enter the eVTOL/UAM industry, a number of important factors indicate that this is not the case, Morgan Stanley is sure. So, What 'Chops' Required for E-Aviation?

ELECTRIC MOTOR
Tesla has long vertically integrated its electric motor technology and makes well over one million e-motors per year (annualized) today. Tesla is known for its highly efficient designs of both permanent magnet and AC induction motors that contribute to industry-leading ranges for its vehicles. Tesla vehicles carry between one and three motors per unit and the company’s 2030 e-motor production volume could reach on the order of 10 million units per year.

Skills transferability: High. eVTOL designs have between six and 12 electric motors in DEP (distributed electric propulsion). Energy efficiency, compact design (power-to-weight) and cost are important attributes for eVTOL.

BATTERY
Tesla is one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world and is taking an increasingly vertically integrated approach. Competency includes cell architecture/design, materials, chemistry, supply chain, software, thermal, BMS and other capabilities. Tesla vehicles demonstrate industry-leading energy density in gravimetric and volumetric terms for high volume automotive-grade production. Tesla designs and manufactures its own cells and is pioneering next-gen manufacturing technology to achieve industry-leading output from its Giga factories with the company targeting several TWh of battery capacity by 2030. Morgan Stanley estimates Tesla battery production to be in the range of 500GWh to 1TWh by 2030.

Skills transferability: Very High. eVTOL designs will require potentially several hundred KWh of battery capacity in a redundant layout, allowing for substantial safety reserve power. Power to weight optimization is key. The energy density of 500 Wh / Kg or more opens up significant short-haul use cases for passengers and freight. Tesla's narrowing of the gap to 1KWh / Kg density is a key capability vector for aviation. Elon Musk stated in 2019 that battery-powered flight would require energy density of at least 400KWh/Kg...a level Tesla expects to achieve well before mid-decade.

MANUFACTURING
Tesla is arguably the most vertically integrated automotive manufacturer in the world. The company is on track to manufacture over 800k light vehicle units this year and estimate nearly six million by 2030, and potentially up 12 or 15 million by 2040 with manufacturing in every major region of the global auto market. Morgan Stanley looks at the opening of manufacturing in Berlin and Austin as an opportunity to demonstrate how much more efficient their manufacturing process can be compared to Fremont and even compared to Shanghai.

Skills transferability: High. The economic model promised by eVTOL networks requires efficient manufacturing with the highest quality/tolerances at scale. The industry forecast of the firm envisions many hundreds of thousands of aircraft (eventually millions) made annually.

AUTONOMY
Based on Morgan Stanley discussions with OEMs, suppliers and technology partners, Tesla is among the most capable players in vehicle autonomy at scale. 100 percent of its cars are connected with OTA update capability. Tesla has formidable in-house/full stack resources in compute / silicon design, software, and AI / neural net training.

Skills transferability: Very High. Autonomy for aircraft control, navigation / ATC, and networking are highly software dependent. Sensor fusion from camera, radar, LIDAR, and other sensors is also critical. Tesla's leadership in autonomous applications positions the company well for a variety of eVTOL missions. Some experts in the field have argued that autonomy for cars is even more challenging than for aircraft due to the complexity and unpredictability of the road environment, especially in dense/urban areas.

NETWORKING / INFRA
Tesla's vehicles are connected with their internally developed OS and OTA updates help to improve performance and safety. Tesla is increasingly offering a range of software-enabled and software-derived services to its users including driver-assist/navigation, performance upgrades, insurance, charging services, and content/experiences.

Skills transferability: High. The economic model of eVTOL is based on fleet management and services. In the vast majority of use cases, Morgan Stanley does not expect consumer-owned eVTOL. Instead, the firm sees it as a fractional use case akin to ride-share. Connected vehicles supported by physical and digital infrastructure, as Tesla does with its fleet, is critical to running a profitable eVTOLfleet.

SAT COMMS/CYBER
Like today’s aircraft, eVTOLs will rely on a variety of advanced communication networks for the safe and efficient execution of missions. Morgan Stanley's work with the MS Telecommunications and Sat-Comms team suggests the growing importance of LEO satellite downlink for redundant and resilient comms in a variety of altitudes, regions, and weather conditions.

Skills transferability: Very High. The firm has long noted the many strategic advantages of the Tesla/SpaceX relationship including knowledge sharing, talent/capability overlap and, increasingly, the business model. The Starlink LEO satellite constellation may, over time, emerge as an important strategic partner to the Tesla ‘Internet of Cars’ ecosystem while Tesla could emerge as a strategic customer to Starlink, enabling its path to scale beyond providing broadband services to homes.

REGULATION/CERTS / FAA
UAM and eVTOL aircraft, manufacturing, flight rules, and services will all be subject to stringent regulatory forces, most of which are unique to aviation. While cars must also pass a range of important traffic safety and crash tests, the margin for error and safety benchmarks for aircraft is on a different level.

Skills transferability: Moderate.

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tes...-enter-vtol-uam-market-morgan-stanley-is-sure

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[JBee]

I don't doubt the company can do it, but I don't think it will happen before Starship is finished, and major parts of getting to Mars is in place, before EM will prioritise it.

If he does I hope he's hiring because I have a flying scaled trimotor evtol prototype ready to roll.

 

[FutureBoy]

I don't doubt the company can do it, but I don't think it will happen before Starship is finished, and major parts of getting to Mars is in place, before EM will prioritise it.

If he does I hope he's hiring because I have a scaled trimotor evtol prototype ready to roll.

Elon already has his own ev airplane design.


I'm guessing that he is pretty sure what he would build if he were to actually decide to build flying craft. But the issue is resources. Where his resources would be best used. And how many resources (engineers) are available.

 

[JBee]

Elon already has his own ev airplane design.


I'm guessing that he is pretty sure what he would build if he were to actually decide to build flying craft. But the issue is resources. Where his resources would be best used. And how many resources (engineers) are available.

I know I have seen them. Thx for the links tho.

As EM says there is no factory line to produce engineers. Skilled labour is a constraint Tesla and Spacex has, and is why they are always recruiting.

But as with all good engineering you need to be able to approximate, model and optimise around physics contraints to have a good design. Even more so for aircraft and evtols. This type of engineering often ends with similar designs where each individual idea results in a better overall solution. I don't doubt EM has a good design, but theres no harm in adding more experiences and ideas.

One critical item is identifying how flight modes affect flight recovery solutions, and how to reduce risk in low altitude appraoch and landing phases. Another is optimising drivetrains for both hover and forward flight, to an electric drivetrain, and in relation to the prop/turbofan config and cruise altitude and velocity. Electric don't have the same altitude limits ICE do either so theres some "interesting" effects on performance once you get up there depending on your flight profile and how you can use interia to increase efficiency and therefore range. Then there the whole redundancy equation for safety, essentially a evtol can have two independent flight systems that can be used for a safe landing if the other fails (plus a chute for higher altitude), and how do you have the same redundancy of a multimitor setup with just three motors (the minimum for useful stable flight control) and not increase parts numbers and complexity and even incorporate autorotaion if propulsion fails (like a heli lands with no motor).

For example in my design I only have one motor controller but can still modulate the thrust of each motor indivudually. Same sort of thing with the aero design and optimisations, where the wing for this 2 seater 700kmh fast LSA class plane is only 4m across, and runs on "just 75kW" in cruise. At the moment its a hybrid biofuel/electric design because I have a higher range target given the designed cruise speed, but as soon as batteries reach the right power density they will just slot right in for the lower range versions. The wings are actually too small and thin too fit cells in, so it has to go into the lifting body fuselage instead, which makes the same design modular enough to accommodate both energy sources.

It would be nice to see some movement on this front from Tesla.

 

[FutureBoy]

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