Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • The small town of Weßling in Bavaria has  a long history in the aerospace industry,  

  • so it's fitting that it's  where Lilium set-up shop.

  • Established by four university students in 2015,  

  • the group is now one of Europe's  leading eVTOL companies.

  • Klaus Roewe is Lilium's CEO.

  • We want to revolutionize aviation.

  • Revolutionize means make it  absolutely zero emission.

  • We want to make a regional plane  that has a decent transport capacity

  • to have a meaningful effect  on CO2 emission reduction.

  • And tell us a bit about Lilium's business model.

  • We have lots of orders already from the premium  market, but also from airline type of customers.

  • We will start delivering the first one to two years

  • into the so-called premium market.

  • But over time we will come out withsix-seater version wih higher density seating,

  • lower operating costs per pax/kilometre and this  

  • is what we believe is 85%  of the market afterwards.

  • Lilium might be aiming to make its jet  affordable, but for now costs are high.

  • If you buy the premium version, it's about $9 million; the shuttle version is about $7 million.

  • Who will be driving, then, a Lilium jet?

  • It can be flown by any certified, qualified pilot.

  • You can start off being a helicopter  pilot or fixed-wing pilot,  

  • and then you will have to do a so-called  transition training into the Lilium jet,  

  • which takes about two weeksIt's extremely easy to fly.

  • Could I do it?

  • You could definitively do ityou're looking like a pilot.

  • That was my cue to hop onboard.

  • Klaus, these seats are quite comfy, interesting inside.

  • What's the overall vision  for the internal experience?

  • It will be very silent, so the internal noise level

  • will be like in a high-class car, not comparable with helicopters at all.

  • And for sure, then you can  configure the aircraft as you like.

  • So, you can basically  customise everything you want.

  • What's the charging time like?

  • Full recharge when you have flown the  longest mission is about 45 minutes.

  • So, if the battery was flat, almost?

  • It will never be really flat.

  • So, the battery when you land and  when you have basically emptied it,  

  • it will still have some 25 to 30% state of charge,

  • because you need to hold reserves.

  • Like when you land with a conventional aircraft, the tanks are never empty.

  • For more on the jet's features and capabilities, I caught up with co-founder, Daniel Wiegard.

  • So here we are in our 175,000  square foot manufacturing facility.

  • Here we can do still dirty  work, like drilling, etcetera,

  • on the structure before we then later move into the final assembly line.

  • Right now, what is next to me here is  our MSN1, our first production aircraft.

  • It's the world's first electric jet airplane  that is in commercial certification.

  • And it also features the largest cabin in the  vertical take-off and landing eVTOL segment.

  • How is this different from some of  the other competitors on the market?

  • Most of our peers are using propellers.

  • These propellers have the advantage  that they're a bit simpler to design

  • and they need less power in take-off and landing  but they're less efficient in the cruise flight.

  • So, since we are focused on regional flights,  

  • we have picked the jet technology  because it yields longer range.

  • Talk to me a bit about how  these vehicles are powered.

  • It is a lithium-ion battery withhigh content of silicon in the anode,  

  • and this helps us to increase the  power and the energy capability.

  • How many stages of testing typically  do eVTOLs need to go through?

  • Well, there is a number of testing stagesthousands of test points to be completed.

  • So, you are starting to test on  the very low component levels,  

  • such as a cell, for example, orunit of the engine or compressor.

  • And then the last level is on the full aircraft,  

  • where you at first have ground testingand then the full aircraft flight test.

  • In 2019, Lilium was awarded one  of the world's most prestigious  

  • design accolades, the Red Dot Award.

  • I caught up with Alberto CarusoHead of Design and Brand.

  • Thank you for having CNBC here. What goes on here at the design studio?

  • This is actually the mock-up area,

  • so where we shape customer  experience of our product.

  • So, you've got here a lot of physical  models we are building up in real scale.

  • And we've seen a few sketches behind us.

  • What's inspired the design  choice for the Lilium jet?

  • It's a perfect combination of the best  of both worlds from helicopter and jet.

  • So, it's a really unique designit's really something innovative.

  • What are some of the materials  that you're using on the jet?

  • The exterior is actually very high-tech materials.

  • So, we are using a lot of carbon  fibre to get really lightweight.

  • Obviously the exterior can be  customised with different liveries.

  • We're going to start with our branded liverythat more or less is going to look like this.

  • It's a very high-tech fresh look.

  • My time at Lilium nearly over, I couldn't  resist trying a fully immersive experience.

  • It feels pretty incredible.

  • I'm not gonna lie, my heart's beating quite fast.

  • I flew over some of London's landmarks

  • I'm just gonna fly towards the Shard.

  • Piloted in the rain.

  • Very realistic weather, that's for sure.

  • And even spotted CNBC's offices.

  • There's Fleet Place!

  • You've been in the aviation industry for three  decades or so, how has the industry evolved,  

  • how is it evolving and what  role is technology playing?

  • There was a lot of efficiency gained by the  structure, by the systems, notably by the engines,  

  • however you can see it's now coming to a kind of  plateau so getting another 20-30% out in terms  

  • of CO2 production is very very difficult, so you  have to make a leapfrog in terms of technology.

  • This could be hydrogen, it  could be battery, electric,  

  • SAF, but SAF we know is not the ideal solution.

  • The most radical solution is clearly  what we are doing; that's why I'm here.

The small town of Weßling in Bavaria has  a long history in the aerospace industry,  

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it