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Thomas Healy
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Hyliion Holdings Corp.

@Hyliion CEO Thomas Healy testified before House Appropriations Committee on Military Construction

📅 Mar 11, 2025 Healy On 12 MIN 20 SEGMENTS · 9 SPEAKERS
Innovative Techniques in Military Construction #hyliion #alternativegas #Carbonfootprint #CNG #RNG #renewablenaturalgas ...

Questions asked in this interview

6
  1. 6:03Would what you're making be viable in Alaska or in the Arctic as well as where I live in Texas where it's hot?
  2. 7:48One of the things that I'm really concerned about, for America's defense, is, you know, these electromagnetic pulses and is your generator protected from those EMPs or can it be?
  3. 8:53Sounds like you've figured out the better and the faster at scale. Will this be cheaper?
  4. 9:52I mean, do you feel that we factor ROI into as we evaluate different options?
  5. 10:52So how about the moon or Mars?
  6. 11:15If we were using your generators when the power went out in Texas, would they have worked?
Chairman Carter 0:00 ↗
Mr. Healey,
Thomas Healy 0:03 ↗
Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Werman Schultz, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for having me here today. I'd like to start off with a question. What if our military could produce electricity through a mobile generator that provided better electricity than even the US grid? Well, I'm here today to introduce a new superior power generation technology, one that's reliable, efficient, fuel flexible, and mobile. I founded Hyliion out of my dorm room at Carnegie Mellon, and it's been an American startup story. We took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020. We raised over 700 million of capital, and we've begun delivering our Carno modular power plant, which we believe will fundamentally change how electricity is produced. If there are three key things to remember about what we're doing, it's first that it's one solution that can be used across all applications. Second is it offers fuel flexibility, reliability, and the performance the military needs. And the third is it's manufactured through 3D printing which enables us to make it here in the US. So let's go back to that first point about one solution across all applications.
What if military vessels, autonomous vessels, what if bases, what if vehicles could all use the same power generation solution, leveraging the same parts and the same service across all applications. The Carno generator is designed to be scalable as well, starting with a 200 kW base unit that then can be stacked together to deliver multi-megawatts for military bases. That base unit, just for reference, is about the size of a bed of a pickup truck. So, it's extremely compact. This vision is already becoming a reality. We actually just delivered our first unit to the Navy, and they're going to not only be testing it for autonomous vessels, but they're also going to be testing it for stationary applications. The second point I made was why Carno? So, this is a fuel agnostic solution. It can operate on over 20 different fuels including diesel, natural gas, propane, JP8. So imagine if our troops are deployed somewhere in the world where it's kind of unsure of what fuel they're going to have available to them and it's unsure if that fuel is even contaminated. Our technology eliminates those concerns because now the system you start feeding it fuel and it will sense what fuel it's receiving, adjust accordingly and deliver electricity.
Now reliability is also key. So this system's designed with only one moving part and even that part glides on gas bearings. It's similar to like an air hockey table. So that eliminates the need for oils, eliminates maintenance or substantial maintenance and eliminates lubricants. So as you think about like autonomous vessels where there isn't anyone on board to actually maintain the engines, reliability is critical. Additionally, we want to look at efficiency. So the Carno generator when you compare to the grid, the grid is about 36% efficient. So you know your standard wall outlet, the Carno generator will be able to deliver efficiencies up to 50%. That means that we're going to use less fuel to make the same amount of power. Now it does all these things while also having a very low noise profile. It's similar noise level. It's like an air conditioning unit. And it also has a low heat profile, meaning the system is less detectable. Any one of these advantages alone could convince you to move away from diesel generators. But we've been able to package all this into one solution, our Carno generator. So the question comes up of like, well, why hasn't this been done before? And that brings me to my third key point, which is 3D printing.
So if you go back 200 years ago, there were steam engines. There were diesel engines. There was this thing called a Stirling. Engineers always knew that Stirlings could be or would be the most efficient way of making power, but you could never manufacture a Stirling. Fast forward to today, thanks to advancements in 3D printing, we're able to make parts like this one here that are extremely complex, allow us to unlock efficiencies that now make Stirlings a reality, or as we like to call it, the Carno generator. So, I think this is going to be passed around. So, I want to be transparent with where we are in this process. As I shared, we just delivered our first unit to the Navy and we have other early adopter customer units planned through the middle of this year. We believe the system will deliver everything I've shared today, but we are still in the final stages of development. We're testing the system and continuing to refine it. So, as we go forward, we'd like to expand our relationship with the military, especially as we start scaling. We've already set up manufacturing both near Austin, Texas, as well as in Cincinnati, Ohio, and so that is going to ensure that this is domestically produced. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Werman Schultz, and distinguished members of the committee. Our military has been known for having the best technology and we need to make sure that remains true for power generation as well. With Hyliion's Carno power plant, we're delivering the three key things that are important. It's one solution that can be used across all applications. It offers fuel flexibility and reliability as well as it's made here in the US thanks to 3D printing. Thank you.
Committee Member 5:54 ↗
These new technologies like 3D printing and additive manufacturing hold a promise. Where is the core stand on the actual
Interviewer 6:03 ↗
Use of these and what research do you have on their reliability and strength in both cold and hot weather? Anyone else want to comment? I know we're all talking about seismic, that's important, but what about the various heat levels? Would what you're making be viable in Alaska or in the Arctic as well as where I live in Texas where it's hot?
Thomas Healy 6:40 ↗
That's a good question. I like as you've talked about what you're doing. Are you looking into those things? I think that's very important. I can maybe share a little bit about that. So just going back to your last question of the reliability of 3D printing. So that part I shared was made through 3D metal additive. Chances are if you flew to DC, greater than 50% chance the plane you were flying on was powered off of additive parts. So this has already been approved by the FAA. It's being used regularly. So additive is real. It's happening. It's being leveraged today in terms of the ability to operate in different environments. That part that got passed around is made out of cobalt chromium, one of the most resistant metals to heat and cold as well. And so our system is designed to be able to operate in the extreme cold like -4C as well as north of 40C. Right? So that means it can go to Alaska, can go to Texas and actually one of the unique things is it actually likes the cold. It actually performs better in the cold. So we're actually looking forward to a Navy deployment that is going to be going to Alaska.
Congressman 1 7:48 ↗
Mr. Healy, I am really intrigued by your development. One of the things that I'm really concerned about, for America's defense, is, you know, these electromagnetic pulses and is your generator protected from those EMPs or can it be?
Thomas Healy 8:19 ↗
Yeah, thank you, Congressman. Today it is not protected from EMP attacks but what I will share is through our journey we've been working with the Navy and the Navy has continued to give us military specs that we need to be able to meet and then our engineering team goes and achieves those. A perfect example is Navy is going to run on diesel fuel they want it to be able to run on up to 20% contaminated with saltwater diesel fuel so then we go and we engineer the system to be able to do that. So that's something if the military is interested in, we'd be happy to explore.
Congressman 2 8:53 ↗
That is pretty amazing actually. Mr. Healy, thank you for your presentation. I was not familiar with what you're doing and I'd love to learn more. I'd love to get a deeper dive on it. Sounds like you've figured out the better and the faster at scale. Will this be cheaper? Seems like it would be just with all the problems it solves.

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APA

Healy, T. (2025, March 11). @Hyliion CEO Thomas Healy testified before House Appropriations Committee on Military Construction [Interview transcript]. Healy On. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1166524/

MLA

Thomas Healy. "@Hyliion CEO Thomas Healy testified before House Appropriations Committee on Military Construction." Healy On, 11 Mar. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1166524/.

BibTeX
@misc{healy2025_1166524,
  author       = {Thomas Healy},
  title        = {@Hyliion CEO Thomas Healy testified before House Appropriations Committee on Military Construction},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Healy On. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2025},
  month        = {mar},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1166524/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}