“We’re creating radically better ways of getting around,” says Lilium as the lead on his website. Pretty bold for a start-up, whose future hangs by a thread
. The company from Wessling near Munich wants to establish a new form of mobility with electric high-flyers – and overcome many a setback along the way. Now there seems to be a glimmer of hope.
In order to be able to take off vertically and then switch to a gliding flight, Lilium’s jet needs particularly powerful batteries. It should deliver custom cells. A company from Itzehoe, whose supposed super batteries too Porsche believes. Customcells manufactures the batteries for Lilium in Tübingen – and says it can now ramp up production. The company announced that it would like to supply Lilium weekly in the future. One can now deliver “thousands of cells” per year.
Customcells is working with the Californian company Ionblox on development. The partners rely on a high silicon content. According to Customcells, independent tests recently showed that the cells still delivered 88 percent of their original performance after 800 charging cycles. They had aimed for a value of 80 percent.
In Tübingen, Customcells CEO Dirk Abendroth (47) wants to quickly expand the production capacity from around 100 megawatt hours to 1.3 gigawatt hours. In addition, the company is looking for another location for the production of air taxi batteries. Planned capacity: 3.5 gigawatt hours. Abendroth is also looking for a suitable production facility for an e-car battery plant in Germany, as he recently revealed in an interview with manager magazin. According to Customcells, not only Porsche counts among its customers, but even “6 of the top 10 automobile manufacturers worldwide”.
Certification is “of course a risk”
Air taxi hope Lilium has not yet been able to prove the viability of its concept. Money has been running out on several occasions, with a stock market value of just under $3.3 billion and just under $270 million left. Most recently, according to their own statements, 540 million dollars were missing for series production. In 2025 Lilium wants to be ready. At the end of 2022, Lilium had 206 million euros in liquidity.
A new boss has been supposed to save the mission since August 2022. Supervisory board boss and exairbusCEO Tom Enders (64) replaced founder Daniel Wiegand (37) with his former Airbus companion Klaus Roewe (58). The prescribed Lilium directly a new business model
: Instead of the whole world like Wiegand, Roewe initially wants to use the jets to please well-heeled passengers.
The biggest hurdle on the way there is the certification by the European aviation authority Easa. “Of course that’s a risk,” knows Customcells CEO Abendroth. However, together they have now “reached an important milestone”, affirms Lilium COO Yves Yemsi. Lilium wants to start building the first aircraft for the certification process this year, they say. In the second half of next year there will be a manned maiden flight.
Customcells boss DirkAbendroth also hopes for that. He now wants to automate production “step by step to large quantities”. And should Lilium break away as a customer after all? Then another buyer will be found, so the hope. After all, the dream of an air taxi is not only dreamed of in Wessling.