EVTOL hopeful Lilium has all but thrown in the towel with a second insolvency filing that will likely be its last according to a company statement. “As the funding options to secure Lilium’s future have not materialized in time, Lilium Aerospace has filed for insolvency today”, the company said. “While talks about alternative solutions are still ongoing, the chance for restructuring right now is highly unlikely and therefore operations will be stopped.”
Where is the editor’s Mea Culpe. ie “We now admit our readers were smarter than we are when it comes to electric aircraft.” ? What is not mentioned here is that Lilium’s management was former Airbus executives who knew how to milk EU governments for grants, loans, and other incentives. You can bet they did not invest a penny from their fat pensions from a heavily-subsidized Airbus.
I think salient fact regarding electric aviation is the physics of battery energy density is totally inappropriate at this time, but also that electric flight is economically unfeasible. How many EVTOL companies have gone belly up?
We already have VTOL aircraft that meet the capacity and range requirements.
A new propulsion clean sheet design is already at a financial disadvantage.
Another $200 million just makes a taller financial hole to dig out of.
Batteries do not have the energy density required for flight. VTOL is the most demanding way to get airborne, requiring twice the power of a conventional takeoff. Lots of small diameter rotors, shrouded or not, are much less efficient that a single large rotor at producing the lift needed for vertical flight.
Multiply all these obstacles and you get a system with at least a hundred to one disadvantage vs helicopters that began flying nearly a hundred years ago. How does this kind of thing get funded? It doesn’t burn kerosene at point of use.
Where is the editor’s Mea Culpe. ie “We now admit our readers were smarter than we are when it comes to electric aircraft.” ?
From what I’ve seen (and read), the editors have been quite neutral on the subject, simply reporting the news. I have seen assertions from the more rabid anti-eVTOLers that doing just that - reporting - amounts to support of the concept, but I don’t think the more astute readers would agree.
Does reporting on EAGLE, PAFI, or DEI endorse those programs?
Lilium’s management was former Airbus executives who knew how to milk EU governments for grants, loans, and other incentives.
I did some digging, but couldn’t find those grants, loans, and other incentives. I did find news of Germany declining to back a Nice Big Loan, which caused Bavaria to also do the same.
You can bet they did not invest a penny from their fat pensions from a heavily-subsidized Airbus.
Digging up investment data can be a little tricky, with paywalls being common. However, I did find the top ten Class A stock holders from MarketScreener (as of 12/30/24). Four of the top ten (including the top three) were institutional investors. The remaining six (including the Lilium founder) were directors/board members.
If nothing else, eVTOL failures are doing a public service by giving us, the peanut gallery, endless material. The common theme? Ambition collides with reality, battery limitations, high costs, and infrastructure challenges keep grounding the eVTOL dream.
Yes - first as an unmanned two seater, next in a five seat version which can be seen in numerous videos - search for “lilium test flights”. The five seater was lost in a ground fire during maintenance, and development efforts shifted to what would have been their 7-seat production model.
If nothing else, eVTOL failures are doing a public service by giving us, the peanut gallery, endless material. The common theme? Ambition collides with reality, battery limitations, high costs, and infrastructure challenges keep grounding the eVTOL dream.