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Archer Selects Molicel to Supply Battery Cells for its Midnight Aircraft

Archer Avi­a­tion and Moli­cel have entered into an agree­ment for Moli­cel to sup­ply lithi­um-ion bat­tery cells for its Mid­night eVTOL air­craft to per­form back-to-back short dis­tance flights of about 20 miles with approx­i­mate­ly 10-minute charg­ing cycles in-between.

Oper­at­ing eVTOL air­craft in dense, urban envi­ron­ments requires state-of-the-art, reli­able bat­tery cells that can deliv­er high pow­er, low imped­ance and fast charg­ing capa­bil­i­ties.

Last year, Moli­cel announced plans to estab­lish its first Gigafac­to­ry in Tai­wan, which is sched­uled to ramp up pro­duc­tion in 2023 and will have the capac­i­ty to pro­duce 1.8 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of bat­tery capac­i­ty annu­al­ly. Part­ner­ing with a bat­tery sup­pli­er that can reli­ably man­u­fac­ture cells at scale allows Archer to reduce its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion risk, as well as its devel­op­ment time­lines and costs.

Archer CEO Adam Gold­stein said: “Moli­cel under­stands that safe­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty are para­mount but that we still must ensure we are liv­ing up to our shared val­ues of social respon­si­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“We are proud to lever­age Molicel’s 40+ years of high vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing expe­ri­ence in the bat­tery indus­try to deliv­er on the promise of the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

Archer now has more than 64% of its sup­pli­ers for its bill-of-mate­ri­als select­ed, includ­ing many glob­al lead­ers in the design, devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing of air­craft com­po­nents.

Moli­cel pres­i­dent Casey Shi­ue said: “The col­lab­o­ra­tion with Archer today shows that our high per­for­mance pow­er cell tech­nol­o­gy, state-of-the-art com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties and expan­sion plans are key val­ues that we add on to part­ners.

“We hope to see the great impact that Mid­night will intro­duce to the mar­ket­place tech­nol­o­gy wise, safe­ty wise and most impor­tant­ly, to prove a prof­itable busi­ness mod­el which a new tech­nol­o­gy can offer to the world while being sus­tain­able and respon­si­ble for the envi­ron­ment.”

Molicel’s 40 years of indus­try lead­ing expe­ri­ence in the bat­tery indus­try, as well as its fast grow­ing pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty, were deci­sive fac­tors in Archer’s deci­sion to select Moli­cel to sup­ply bat­ter­ies for Mid­night.

Moli­cel focus­es on demand­ing, high-per­for­mance appli­ca­tions of its bat­ter­ies, with its tech­nol­o­gy already in use across space, advanced auto­mo­tive and pow­er tool appli­ca­tions.

Archer Avi­a­tion today pub­licly unveiled Mid­night, a pilot-plus-four-pas­sen­ger eVTOL air­craft, in Palo Alto, Cal­i­for­nia.

Yes­ter­day, Archer Avi­a­tion and Garmin entered into an agree­ment for Garmin to sup­ply the G3000 inte­grat­ed flight deck for Archer’s Mid­night Pro­duc­tion Air­craft.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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