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CUSTOMCELLS to produce high performance lithium-ion battery cells for Lilium’s seven-seater eVTOL aircraft

Lil­i­um has part­nered with CUSTOMCELLS to man­u­fac­ture at scale the lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies for its sev­en-seater eVTOL air­craft, which will play a cru­cial role in ahead of a planned com­mer­cial launch in 2024.

CUSTOMCELLS, who also sup­ply inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion, auto­mo­tive and mil­i­tary cus­tomers, includ­ing Porsche AG, will be one of Lil­i­um’s sup­pli­ers. It will indus­tri­alise the bat­tery cells for high-qual­i­ty series pro­duc­tion at its facil­i­ty in Tübin­gen, Ger­many and togeth­er with part­ner and equip­ment Manz AG, it says it offers one of the most mod­ern bat­tery cell pro­duc­tion lines in Europe.

Daniel Wie­gand, Co-Founder and CEO of Lil­i­um said: “With their exten­sive expe­ri­ence of design­ing and pro­duc­ing cus­tomised high-per­for­mance Li-Ion bat­ter­ies for auto­mo­tive and avi­a­tion appli­ca­tions, CUSTOMCELLS is an ide­al part­ner to man­u­fac­ture aero­space-qual­i­ty bat­tery cells for our jet.

“They have already set up man­u­fac­tur­ing of sil­i­con anode bat­ter­ies for sev­er­al of their cus­tomers. We are excit­ed to be work­ing along­side anoth­er next gen­er­a­tion com­pa­ny like CUSTOMCELLS.”

CUSTOMCELLS will join Lilium’s ros­ter of world-class sup­pli­ers, includ­ing Toray Indus­tries, Aci­tur­ri, Lufthansa Avi­a­tion Train­ing, Hon­ey­well and Palan­tir. It will also sit along­side infra­struc­ture lead­ers, such as the Tavi­s­tock Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, and Fer­rovial, a lead­ing air­port oper­a­tor, which will sup­port the devel­op­ment of up to 14 ver­ti­ports in Flori­da.

Last month, CUSTOMCELLS also announced the launch of a joint ven­ture with Porsche, named Cell­force Group, which will pro­duce high-per­for­mance sil­i­con-anode bat­ter­ies at its Weis­sach Devel­op­ment Cen­tre.

Leopold König, Co-Founder and CEO of CUSTOMCELLS said: “On the basis of flex­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cepts, CUSTOMCELLS guar­an­tees high-tech solu­tions for spe­cial appli­ca­tions and tai­lor-made pro­duc­tion of elec­trodes, elec­trolytes and bat­tery cells with an out­stand­ing qual­i­ty and trace­abil­i­ty approach, depend­ing on the cus­tomer’s require­ments pro­file.

“This part­ner­ship will bring two lead­ing Ger­man inno­va­tors togeth­er and under­lines the strength of the Ger­man man­u­fac­tur­ing and tech ecosys­tem.”

When oper­a­tional, the Lil­i­um Jet will have a pro­ject­ed cruise speed of 175mph at 10,000ft and range of more than 155 miles plus reserves.

The air­craft is the cul­mi­na­tion of five years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment across four gen­er­a­tions of demon­stra­tors, includ­ing its full-scale five-seater eVTOL air­craft. Lil­i­um applied for con­cur­rent type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for a high-capac­i­ty air­craft with EASA and the FAA in 2018. In 2020, the 7‑Seater Lil­i­um Jet received CRI-A01 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis from EASA.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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