Billy Thalheimer, co-Founder, and CEO of Regent, joined Cheddar News to discuss the inaugural all-electric seaglider, which recently achieved its first test flights.

Billy Thalheimer, co-Founder, and CEO of Regent, joined Cheddar News to discuss the inaugural all-electric seaglider, which recently achieved its first test flights. “Seagliders are meant for regional maritime travel," he said. "So think about routes like L.A. to San Francisco, Boston to New York, island-hopping around the Hawaiian islands, or the Bahamas.”

Regent CEO Discusses the World's First Electric Seaglider

sustainable maritime mobility startup region says it recently completed the world's first all electric sea glider flight while regions see gliders operate exclusively over the water and aimed to drastically reduce the time and cost of moving people between coastal cities. The company says its successful flight demonstration is the final step in proving the feasibility of its technology and it will now focus on bringing its sea gliders to global commercial service by 2025. So joining me now is billy tall Heimer co founder and ceo of Regent. Billy, thanks so much for coming on the show. I see one of these sea gliders behind you. Talk to me more about how this machine is basically fueled, awesome. Well thanks for having me at region, we build sea gliders. It's a new me mode of transportation. You can see RC glider prototype flying over my shoulder here again, these are all electric vehicles, so zero emissions and because they're all electric, they significantly decrease the cost of regional transportation. Sea gliders are meant for regional maritime travel. So think about routes like L. A. To san Francisco boston to new york island hopping around the Hawaiian islands or the Bahamas. If you think about how to do these today, you could take an AARP, but you'll be sitting in the airport for as long as you're in the airplane on the coastal routes like boston, new york, L. A to san Francisco, you'll be sitting in a car for hours and getting stuck in traffic with this vehicle with sea gliders, you can go down to the dock, board it like a ferry and then once you leave the harbor you take off onto the wing. Flying on a cushion of air sort of like a pelican is very calm, smooth, high speed ride six times faster than a ferry, half the cost of an air craft. And of course with the electric propulsion system, zero emissions. It is amazing. We're showing the images now truly incredible. Obviously can't transmit as many people as a single ferry ride actually could billy but the look is a bit different than some of the seaplanes that you see out there now. How was the technology and the innovation behind this particular glider more effective than what currently exists on the market? Yeah, we'll see planes and really all flying boats before take off from flat holes or flat floats. And so they don't have great wave tolerance. You know, at best. It's sort of an uncomfortable choppy takeoff and landing at worst if the waves are too high, you can't take off at all and so people can't plan their commutes or their vacations around the vehicle, which may not be able to take off if the waves are too high. Regent and R. C. Gliders is the first vehicle that solves this problem. You can see here in the picture behind me and in the video see gliders are hydro foiling vehicles. So in the harbors, as you can see there in that video were on the hydrofoil, we have wave tolerance. We're using the latest technology from the America's cup campaigns, the latest and greatest, or the f one of the sailing world. This gives us a wave tolerant, comfortable maneuverable ride as we go through the harbor. So we truly are a ferry in the harbors and then once we get to the open waters that that's when we take off onto our wing. And so the key technical thing we've done here is actually taken off from the hydrofoils onto a wing. No one in history has been able to do that. It is pretty cool. I like the comparison there. Maybe we gotta get Lewis, Hamilton's in one of these gliders. Absolutely, yeah, well he'd actually be a great driver for it, really easy to fly. You actually, you don't need a pilot's license to operate these things. You drive a c glider just like you drive a boat fast and slow and so I think Lewis would be a fantastic driver for a seat. So now I I get the F one comparison there, That's really interesting. Um I do want to talk about what the company has seen already selling over 325 of these gliders. $6 billion order backlog. Congratulations. So that's a lot of demand, of course spanning global aviation and ferry customers as well as you've been talking about there, but who are some of the customers and how do you plan to expand that customer base that you have now? Absolutely. We can highlight a few of our first customers that have nonrefundable deposits down. So they are waiting in line anxiously awaiting delivery of their sea gliders. We can highlight southern airways express that operates as most airlines in Hawaii. So think about going to Hawaii over 4/5 of the tourists in Hawaii stay on one island, the entire vacay because it's such a pain to move between the islands. And now what we can do with the sea glider technology is give them the easy ability, affordable and of course, zero mission to move between the islands. So really excited about mobile will highlight another in new Zealand ocean flyer. Ocean fliers, actually one of the first dedicated sea glider lines on the planet. So we have airlines, we have very lines operating sea gliders and now with ocean flyer in new Zealand a dedicated sea glider line to own and operate gliders. It is absolutely incredible. I'm just curious to what is next in terms of more funding that you're looking to raise. Are there other sustainability measures, ability that you can take as well here as you grow out the offerings? Yeah, well, we've had incredible demand for this vehicle and obviously now that we've proven the physics that this float foil and fly operations of the sea gliders, the wave tolerance and the controllable ride is possible. The next step is to build it bigger. So our next vehicle will be a full scale vehicle. Our first product vehicle, called Viceroy, is 12 seat vehicle about the size of a large seaplane, 65 ft wingspan. So our next prototype will be a full scale prototype with that 65 ft wingspan able to carry human passengers, were tracking to get that in the water and then into the air with human passengers by the end of 2024. Amazing that you can fly one of these gliders. One of these futuristic sustainable gliders. Really, really without a pilot's license. It's amazing! So, I hope you come back on the show. Congratulations. That's billy tall heimer, uh, co founder and Ceo of region. Thank you.