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German air taxi manufacturer Lilium Air Mobility plans to establish an industrial capacity to produce 400 electric Lilium jet flying wheels per year. All this is affecting plans to support public research. The market for electric vertical takeoff is becoming competitive, with the goal of replacing road trips or short hops with airplane trips.
Image credits- DW
However, challenges in obtaining certification and financing innovations such as fresh battery technology have hampered the new sector. Shares of Lilium are down 73 percent this year. I am pushing hard for a production system for 400 aircraft. And with any luck, we’ll need 800 not just here (in Germany) … but where the big markets are,” said former Airbus executive Klaus Rowe. Rowe joined the Bavarian startup in August after facing what he described to Lilium shareholders on Wednesday as the head of the A320 family program at Airbus, which he described as “manufacturing hell” for the larger aircraft.
“Let’s scale it up and see how we design a production system, including the entire supply chain, for 400 airplanes,” Rowe said after a quarterly shareholder update. Lilium did not provide detailed costs.
Technology
For the first time, the company plans to use regular public funding sources, such as research grants, Rowe said. He did not say where the public support would come from or what the sum would be. Aerospace companies will tap national and EU programs to boost innovation, while Airbus has clashed with Boeing over the use of loans. Lilium says it is confident its rechargeable lithium batteries will meet performance and regulatory requirements.
In the year February 2020 A battery fire destroyed a technology demonstration and led to test delays. Rowe said the risk of so-called thermal runaway could never be eliminated, but that it would accumulate in smaller cells and stay well within certification requirements, which include the same tiny gaps as commercial jets. According to the aerospace and eVTOL publication The Air Current, batteries can be a common sticking point in certification between different regulators with yet-to-be-harmonized rules.
The German company plans a regional transportation network called Lilium from Florida and a separate revenue stream from fixed-wing hovercraft wholesale to companies planning their own cargo or passenger operations. He said he expects to start accepting prepayments next year as potential buyers place tentative orders.
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