Lilium Air Mobility Hopes To Produce 400 e-VTOL Aircraft In A Year

JAKARTA - German air taxi developer Lilium Air Mobility plans to set up industrial capacity to make about 400 electric-powered Lilium Jet flying shuttles a year. They also hope to take advantage of the grant-funding scheme provided for public research.

Lilium is currently competing in the crowded market for its Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) electric vehicle, which is expected to replace ground travel or short jumps by plane or helicopter.

But the challenges of securing certification and funding innovations such as new battery technologies have weighed on this new sector. Lilium shares have fallen 73% so far this year.

"I push hard (for) a production system for 400 aircraft. And if one day we are lucky, we need 800 we will just duplicate it, not in Germany ... but where the big market is," said former Airbus executive Klaus Roewe who is now Lilium CEO told Reuters.

Roewe joined the Bavarian startup in August after experiencing what he described to shareholders Lilium on Wednesday, September 28 as "manufacturing hell" to ramp up production of larger aircraft as head of the A320 family program at Airbus.

"Let's measure and let's see how we should design the production system including the entire supply chain for 400 aircraft," Roewe said after the quarterly shareholder update. However, Lilium itself did not provide a breakdown of the costs.

"The company is planning for the first time to leverage public funding sources such as research grants," said Roewe.

He did not say where the public funds might come from or what amounts might be involved. Aerospace companies typically take advantage of national and European Union programs to boost innovation, while Airbus is at odds with Boeing over the use of loans.

Lilium says it believes the rechargeable lithium battery will meet performance and regulatory requirements. In February 2020, a battery fire destroyed a technology demonstrator and caused testing delays.

Roewe said the so-called thermal runaway risk could never be eliminated but would be contained in a small number of cells and still well within the certification criteria, which involve the same small margin of error as for commercial jets.

According to the aerospace and eVTOL publication, The Air Current, batteries can be a common problem in certification with rules not yet harmonized between different regulators,

The German company plans a Lilium-branded regional transport network starting in Florida and a separate revenue stream stemming from the mass sale of its fixed-wing hover jets to companies planning their own cargo or passenger operations.

It expects to start receiving pre-shipment payments next year as potential buyers have placed temporary orders.