One capsule has passed full-scale ballistic testing, a second floats, five more are on the roadmap, and their builder is looking for the people who can help put them where the risk is.
Protection only counts if it is already there when the emergency begins. When people still have time to leave, leaving comes first. The harder question is what protects the ones who can’t get out in time.
The Pacific coast of the United States is one place where that question has been measured. In 2021, Washington State’s Emergency Management Division reported that after a large Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, people on the outer coast may have only 10 to 15 minutes to reach high ground once the shaking stops. At the time, the state counted two tsunami vertical evacuation structures, one of them still under construction.
Cédric Choffat’s answer to that gap is a capsule, placed in advance where the risk is. He is the founder and CEO of Momentum Technologies, the company behind LifePods, a range of protective capsules in which each model is engineered for one threat. The B01 is a ballistic capsule in high-strength steel. The W01 is a floating capsule in marine-grade aluminum, with buoyant foam and ballast, for floods, dam or levee failures and tsunamis. On Cascadia he is careful. “W01 will not solve that problem,” he says, “but it could become an additional layer of protection alongside evacuation, warning systems and existing infrastructure.”
Both capsules exist at full scale. The B01 has passed VPAM BSR7 ballistic testing as a complete capsule. The W01, built in Finland, has completed its initial buoyancy and habitability testing. By Cédric’s account, the distance from the idea to those two objects was roughly one year.
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One Capsule per Risk
“LifePods is not one universal capsule,” Cédric says. “Our philosophy is: one risk, one dedicated response.”
Each model starts with the risk itself. The B01 uses high-strength steels and an internal structure designed around ballistic threats, fragmentation and blast effects. Of those, ballistic performance is the one tested so far. The W01 uses marine-grade aluminum, buoyant foam, ballast and structural protection. The same approach runs through the Thermal, Storm, Firemen, Wildfire and Quake models that follow. Quake, for example, is intended to protect people from collapsing structures and to provide emergency supplies while survivors wait for rescue.
The reasoning is about constraints. “A tsunami, wildfire, ballistic threat and earthquake impose completely different engineering constraints,” he says. So the company studies each risk and engineers a response around it, instead of trying to build one product for everything.
“When evacuation is still possible, evacuation should always be the priority. But when escape is no longer possible, we want to provide an immediately accessible protective space designed for that particular threat and capable of increasing the chances of survival.”
Cédric Choffat, Founder & CEO, Momentum Technologies
That is where placement comes in. “The key word is proactive,” he says. “A LifePods capsule cannot help someone if it is not already positioned where the risk exists.”
Two of the models are no longer plans.
Where the B01 and the W01 Stand
“Today, LifePods has moved well beyond the concept stage,” Cédric says. The B01 is the most advanced product. A full-scale capsule has been built and has passed VPAM BSR7 ballistic testing, and the company is now completing the final industrial and commercial steps toward first deliveries.
He draws a line around that result. The B01 has not yet been physically tested or certified for blast, explosion or fire. The engineering calculations and the current design give the company “good reasons to believe that the capsule can provide meaningful protection against blast and fire,” he says, and the corresponding physical tests are planned over the next six months. The distinction matters to him “because we want to communicate only what we have actually demonstrated.”
The W01 has also been built at full scale, in Finland, with industrial partner IWL. Initial buoyancy and habitability testing is complete. What comes next is further real-world testing and the regulatory pathway required for deployment.
Both have been shown in public. Momentum Technologies was selected to exhibit in the Innovation Gallery at Viva Technology 2026 in Paris, which the company chose for the W01’s first unveiling, and the B01 was showcased at Eurosatory 2026. The project also carries a letter of recommendation from the CCI des Pyrénées-Orientales, which Cédric has described as support from the company’s own territory.
He has written that the company has now shown that the engineering and the results follow its announcements. He puts the speed down to what came before LifePods.
From His Father’s Company to ACD Parts Engineering
Cédric grew up around his father’s company, which manufactured molds and models, work that often required, as he puts it, “a completely different technical approach from one project to the next.” Asked for the person who shaped him, he names eight: “the eight highly skilled people who worked in my father’s company when I was young. They taught me rigorous working methods and very high standards from an early age. I only fully understood years later how valuable what they had taught me was.”
His own career came later. He describes it as primarily industrial engineering and metallurgy, particularly the design and manufacturing of motorcycle parts and accessories, and he has also worked on projects in the railway sector. His profile lists him as owner of ACD Parts Engineering in Girona from 1998 to 2025, and describes more than 20 years designing and producing parts for manufacturers including Yamaha, Husqvarna/KTM, Triumph and Honda. In that time he worked with machining, welding, 3D design, bending, robotic welding, casting, forging, polishing, laser cutting and many different materials.
“Today, when I imagine a product, I don’t only see its shape. I am already thinking about how it will be manufactured, which processes and machines will be required, how repeatable production will be, which materials are appropriate, what can fail and how costs can be controlled.”
Cédric, Founder & CEO, Momentum Technologies
One stretch of those years he describes without decoration. “After the 2008 financial crisis, everything collapsed around me,” he says. “I kept working, rebuilding step by step. It took several years, but I never stopped believing in my ability to recover and eventually I did.”
Move Fast, Then Iterate
The habit he names is a working rule. “Move fast based on sound technical criteria, and iterate whenever necessary,” he says. “I would rather keep improving something as we move forward than wait for everything to be perfect before we start.”
The rule also covers a test that falls short. If the blast and fire results do not reach the level of performance the company is aiming for, he says, “we will modify the design, iterate and test again until we achieve a satisfactory result.”
He ties the pace of LifePods to that rule and to the manufacturing years behind it. “That experience, combined with the right industrial partners, is one reason we have been able to move so quickly,” he says. “In roughly one year, we went from an idea to full-scale physical capsules, including a B01 that has successfully passed full-capsule ballistic testing.”
The same pace is now being applied to the rest of the range.
The Next Five Models
“For a long time, civil resilience could feel like a distant subject for many people,” Cédric says. “Today, that perception is changing.” He points to climate change, which is increasing exposure to extreme heat, fires and other severe events, and to geopolitical instability, which has brought other risks back into public view.
“I believe we are at the beginning of a much broader movement toward civil resilience.”
Cédric, Founder & CEO, Momentum Technologies
The figures on heat are public. The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown found that the rate of heat-related deaths has risen 23 percent since the 1990s, to 546,000 a year.
Heat is the risk the next capsule addresses. The T01 Thermal Shelter is in development, with a first prototype targeted for early 2027. Cédric has written that it is meant for episodes of extreme heat and severe cold, as an autonomous unit that can be deployed quickly for local authorities, industrial sites, workers and vulnerable populations. Storm is also under development, “particularly with the US market in mind.” Firemen, Wildfire and Quake follow in the roadmap, with development and testing planned progressively through 2027.
He keeps the claim modest. He has written that the company does not pretend it can prevent these events, and that it wants to help protect people better when they happen. What changes now is the scale of the task. “We are now moving from proving that the LifePods concept can become a physical, tested product,” he says, “to building an industrial multi-risk platform that can be deployed internationally.”
Where Cédric Is Now
This year’s work is the last stretch before first deliveries of the B01, real-world testing and the regulatory pathway for the W01, and the development of the T01. He has also written that the company is preparing a Series A.
What he wants from the next twelve months is to reach “people who have the ability to accelerate the deployment of LifePods at scale.” That means investors, and it means people with strong technology and industrial capabilities, international deployment experience and established institutional relationships. He offers Elon Musk as “an obvious example of that type of profile,” and adds in the same breath: “I have no idea whether he would ever be interested in LifePods.”
“The other audience that matters enormously to me is civil protection,” he says. He wants to hear from civil protection professionals “who can challenge, test and help us deploy our solutions where they are genuinely useful.”
Outside work there is motocross. “I have been riding since I was 14, and it is one of the very few activities that allows me to disconnect completely from work,” he says. “When I am riding, I have no choice but to be fully present.” It helps him recharge physically and mentally, and it asks for concentration, fitness and the willingness to keep pushing his own limits. Today it has another dimension for him: “it is a passion I share with my children, which makes it even more meaningful.”
Had he not pursued an industrial career and created LifePods, he says, he would probably have developed a project in organic, healthy food and restaurant concepts. “I strongly believe that eating healthy, high-quality food plays an essential role in our health and overall well-being,” he says.
He is clear about what the company is for. “LifePods is an ambitious business, but its ultimate purpose is to save lives, especially families and children,” he says. One day, he hopes to pass the company on to his children. Before that, there is one thing he wants to see.
“The day I see a family walk out alive from a LifePods capsule that protected them through a critical event, I will feel that my mission has been accomplished.”
The Cédric Choffat Playbook: From Idea to Tested Capsule
- Start with the risk. Each model begins with the threat and is engineered around it: one risk, one dedicated response.
- Put protection in place before the emergency. A capsule only helps if it is already positioned where the risk exists.
- See the production line when you see the product. Think about processes, machines, repeatability, materials, what can fail and cost while the shape is still an idea.
- Move fast on sound technical criteria. Keep improving as you go, and do not wait for everything to be perfect before you start.
- Build it at full scale, test it, and claim only what the test showed. The B01 was built and ballistically tested as a complete capsule, and its blast and fire tests are still to come.
From the Diary of Cédric Choffat
Cédric Choffat is an industrial builder and the Founder & CEO of Momentum Technologies, the company in Le Boulou, France, behind LifePods.
| Role | Founder & CEO, Momentum Technologies (LifePods) |
| Based in | Le Boulou, France |
| Previously | Owner, ACD Parts Engineering SL, Girona, 1998 to 2025 |
| Also | Selected for the Innovation Gallery, Viva Technology 2026 |
“I want to protect every family as if I were protecting my own.”
Editor’s Note
Executives Diary chose Cédric Choffat because his claims arrive with objects attached. A full-scale B01 has passed ballistic testing and a full-scale W01 has completed its first buoyancy and habitability tests, roughly a year after the idea. What convinced the editors is how he states the limits: evacuation first, the capsule as an additional layer, no claim that the W01 solves Cascadia, and a clear line between what the B01 has been tested for and what it has not. He is asking civil protection professionals to challenge and test the work, and he says so in public.
Executives Diary, Editorial
