Jon Excell

London

Editor and Publisher at The Engineer (magazine)

Editor, Journalist, Guitarist, Omnivore

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Articles

The technologies that will underpin a sustainable long-term future in space - The Engineer

4 weeks ago | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

The global space economy - once the sole preserve of governments - is growing and changing rapidly as a host of entrepreneurs and new space innovators eye up the potential of opportunities, ranging from asteroid mining and orbital data centres, to space-based solar power and zero-gravity drug development. Indeed, according to analysts, commercial activities now account for almost 80 per cent of a sector that’s predicted to grow from $630 billion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion by 2035.
Experts speculate over cause of Iberian power outages

2 months ago | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Nationwide power shortages brought chaos to Spain and Portugal this Monday (28th April): crippling mobile networks, bringing airports and rail networks to a standstill and leaving millions without electricity. And whilst power is now gradually being restored across most of the affected areas, the initial cause of the blackouts remain unclear, with some experts cautioning that it could take many weeks, or even months, to complete a full investigation.
The rise of the heavy-lift cargo drone - The Engineer

2 months ago | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Disruptive innovations often have the most unlikely origin stories. In the case of the Black Swan - a fixed-wing unmanned drone that promises to reshape the world of airfreight - it was its inventor’s hankering for Bulgarian cheese that kicked things off.
Automotive sector rattled by Trump tariffs

Mar 27, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Due to come into effect on 2nd April, the tariffs are the latest step in an accelerating trade war between the US and its partners and allies, and are expected to be followed by levies on a wide-range of other imported goods. The announcement triggered an immediate fall in the share price of car makers around the world with Vauxhall maker Stellantis seeing a 6.4 per cent drop and the world’s biggest carmaker Toyota seeing a two per cent fall.
C2I 2024 Healthcare & Medical winner: The Children’s Adaptive Deep brain stimulation for Epilepsy Trial (CADET) - The Engineer

Mar 4, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Category: Healthcare & Medical Project: The Children’s Adaptive Deep brain stimulation for Epilepsy Trial (‘CADET’) Partners: Department of Neurosurgery, Great Ormond Street Hospital with Amber Therapeutics Ltd, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford; Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, University of Oxford; Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London Last year, UK clinicians...
C2I 2024: The late Sir David McMurtry honoured as recipient of Impact Award for Innovation Excellence - The Engineer

Mar 3, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Reserved, self-deprecating, and famously shy of the spotlight, Renishaw co-founder Sir David McMurtry was perhaps an unlikely engineering hero. But when it was announced late last year (Dec 2024) that he had passed away, the outpouring of tributes from industry peers, colleagues and just about anyone who had the good fortune to meet or work with him left no doubt that the world of engineering had lost one of its brightest and best-loved stars.
C2I 2024 Wild Card winner: AVA Bridge & Lift System - The Engineer

Mar 3, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

Category: Wild CardProject: AVA Bridge & Lift SystemPartners: Network Rail, Expedition Engineering, Walker Construction, Hawkins\Brown, McNealy Brown, ARX, OutokumpuThe UK’s ageing rail infrastructure has always presented a range of challenges for engineers, with swathes of its 19thCentury tracks, tunnels, and stations requiring constant repair, upgrades, maintenance and modernisation to meet the demands of a modern transport network.
Expert Q&A: how AI is driving developments in battery technology - The Engineer

Feb 26, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

As the low carbon revolution gathers pace, the demand for new and improved battery technologies has become one of the fastest moving areas of technology development, and artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in delivering the advances required. Over the following pages we hear from some of those at the cutting edge of developments in this area: from the discovery and characterisation of new materials and chemistries, to the optimisation of manufacturing processes.
Welcome to The Engineer's AI week

Feb 24, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

From generative AI to Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence has huge implications across all sectors of the economy; not least the world of engineering where it promises to accelerate the pace of innovation and drive productivity and efficiency. But despite being one of the most talked about areas of technology, it’s also one of the most poorly understood.
Europa Clipper on a mission to probe an alien water world - The Engineer

Feb 4, 2025 | theengineer.co.uk | Jon Excell

The discovery of Jupiter’s four largest moons Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa - first sighted by Italian astronomer Gailleo Galilie through a homemade telescope in 1610 - triggered a fundamental rethink in our understanding of the universe. Whilst existing models of the solar system placed the Earth at the centre, Galileo’s observation of moons orbiting Jupiter provided strong evidence that this so-called geocentric model was wrong and marked a key moment in the development of modern astronomy.