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MagniX revs up electric motors for airplanes

Magnix CEO Roei Ganzarski with motor
MagniX CEO Roei Ganzarski shows off a drum-sized, 350-horsepower electric motor that will soon be hooked up to an airplane propeller at the company’s lab in Redmond, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

REDMOND, Wash. — An electric-propulsion company called MagniX shifted its headquarters from Australia to Redmond just a few months ago — but it’s already revving up for takeoff.

The venture, owned by Singapore-based Clermont Group, is on track to conduct its first flight tests with an all-electric motor installed in a converted plane by the end of the year, CEO Roei Ganzarski told GeekWire this week during a tour of MagniX’s digs.

The two-story office space in Redmond already houses more than 15 employees, and Ganzarski plans to hire 20 more in the next three months, mostly in engineering. Roughly 50 more employees are working at MagniX’s engineering facility in Arundel, about 40 miles south of Brisbane on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Ganzarski, a Boeing veteran, said the company moved its global HQ to Redmond to take advantage of the Seattle area’s engineering talent and its aerospace ecosystem. “You can’t be a world leader in aerospace from Australia. … We decided that the most logical place for us would be Seattle, Washington,” he said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

By Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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