{"id":6605,"date":"2023-07-27T17:27:23","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T17:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/?p=6605"},"modified":"2023-07-27T17:27:23","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T17:27:23","slug":"liliums-multi-purpose-drone-jet-taxi-occupies-a-special-niche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/liliums-multi-purpose-drone-jet-taxi-occupies-a-special-niche\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilium’s Multi-Purpose Drone Jet Taxi Occupies a Special Niche \u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a9 Lilium<\/p><\/div>\n

Will Germany\u2019s Lilium become the first flying car manufacturer to commercialize its prototype?\u00a0 Its investors surely hope so but company CEO Klaus Roewe has an unusually\u00a0 realistic and hype-free view of Lilium\u2019s prospects.<\/p>\n

While other air taxi\u00a0 companies are promising to have their vehicles in active service by 2028, or even 2025, Roewe believes it will likely take until 2030 for Lilium\u2019s prototype to be fully flight-ready.<\/p>\n

In a recent YouTube interview commemorating Lilium\u2019s latest successful flight test in southern Spain, Roewe said a key unknown in the air taxi sector as a whole is the level of consumer demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the demand is there, we may be able to have vehicles in service before 2030, but if it\u2019s not, we\u2019ll just have to wait,\u201d he says matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n

Some of Lilium\u2019s American rivals are far more optimistic.\u00a0 Silicon Valley-based Joby Aero and Archer Aviation claim they have pre-orders for their own air taxis numbering in the hundreds. The two companies have forged deals with major commercial airlines (Delta and United, respectively) to deploy their vehicles as elite commuter shuttles serving major airports in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.\u00a0 It\u2019s a promising sign but no guarantee that either can operate at scale as a mass transit system for the broader public (one reason, among several, that neither Joby nor Archer has built a manufacturing plant just yet).<\/p>\n

Lilium actually has a major leg up on its competition.\u00a0 To date, it\u2019s the only air taxi company that has received \u201cairworthiness\u201d certificates from both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Administration (EASA)\u00a0 allowing it to fly on both sides of the Atlantic once its final prototype is approved and mass production gets underway.<\/p>\n

And that advantage will likely persist.\u00a0 EASA safety standards are far more stringent than the FAA\u2019s, so unless Joby, Archer and other American companies make additional changes to their aircraft design, they\u2019re unlikely to receive EASA approval to fly in Europe.\u00a0 Lilium could one day emerge as the world\u2019s flying taxi flagship, even outpacing its US counterparts in their own backyard.<\/p>\n

Lilium\u2019s latest prototype \u2013 four years in the making \u2013 has several unusual design features that could also give it a decided edge.\u00a0 Like most air taxis, it\u2019s an eVOTL aircraft that runs on electric batteries alone \u2013 a boon to the environment.\u00a0 But it\u2019s actually powered by more than a dozen downward thrusting jet engines that allow it to fly forward like a fixed-wing aircraft.\u00a0 And unlike many air taxis that resemble a small military helicopter \u2013 with prominent and rather ungainly rotary attachments overhead \u2013 Lilium\u2019s drone \u2013 with a wingspan of nearly 25 feet \u2013 actually looks like a small civilian airplane.\u00a0 Except that it doesn\u2019t need a runway, and can be flown at high speeds with or without a pilot onboard.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also Lilium\u2019s unique shape-shifting cabin design \u2013 roomy enough for club seating but also capable of seating six for commercial passenger travel. And the entire cabin can also be cleared, if need be,\u00a0 to convert the drone into a cargo plane. It’s a multi-purpose air taxi unlike any other currently being\u00a0 developed.<\/p>\n

Roewe also emphasizes that the Lilium\u2019s vehicle is geared to longer-distance \u201cregional\u201d transportation not to the \u201dlast mile\u201d flying typically associated with drones.\u00a0 Making longer distance drone taxi travel possible will require an extensive network of \u201cvertiports\u201d where vehicles can pause for recharging and also be redirected to various destinations.\u00a0 Lilium claims that it\u2019s fast at work on these infrastructural requirements, another reason commercialization can\u2019t be rushed, company officials say.<\/p>\n

Unlike Archer and Joby, Lilium hasn\u2019t cut any deals with commercial airports in Europe but the company claims to have signed contracts with major suppliers in Italy, Switzerland and most recently, China, where the local drone taxi company EHang holds sway.<\/p>\n

EHang, which claims to be 90% through the Chinese certification process and has ambitions of conquering the Asian market, may well become the first air taxi in the world to enter into active service.<\/p>\n

But Lilium has plans to establish a regional headquarters in Shenzhen in southern China and could soon give EHang a serious run for its money.\u00a0 A Chinese firm, Heli-Eastern, recently ordered 100 of Lillium\u2019s jet drone jet taxis and other Chinese investors are reportedly beginning\u00a0 to warm to the German firm.<\/p>\n

The race is on for dominance in the air taxi sector,\u00a0 and right now, the odds seem to favor Lilium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will Germany\u2019s Lilium become the first flying car manufacturer to commercialize its prototype?\u00a0 Its investors surely hope so but company CEO Klaus Roewe has an unusually\u00a0 realistic and hype-free view of Lilium\u2019s prospects. While other air taxi\u00a0 companies are promising to have their vehicles in active service by 2028, or even 2025, Roewe believes it… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}