FeaturedNews

Lilium confirms production of high-performance battery packs for the Lilium Jet — first piloted flight set for end of 2024

Lil­i­um has start­ed pro­duc­tion of the advanced, avi­a­tion grade bat­tery packs that will pow­er the Lil­i­um Jet on its first pilot­ed flight, tar­get­ed for end of this year.

This lat­est mile­stone rep­re­sents a land­mark in the devel­op­ment of the air­craft and fol­lows exten­sive test­ing of bat­tery pack sub­com­po­nents from indi­vid­ual cell to stack lev­el with a focus on per­for­mance, safe­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry con­for­mi­ty.

Lilium’s bat­tery packs are being designed to meet EASA’s strin­gent air­craft safe­ty require­ments regard­ing shock resis­tance, heat resis­tance, con­tain­ment, and redun­dan­cy. They are also being designed to deliv­er out­stand­ing pow­er and ener­gy den­si­ty to sup­port a busi­ness mod­el focused on region­al, rather than urban, air mobil­i­ty. Lil­i­um has secured com­pre­hen­sive intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights for its unique bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy. 

Yves Yem­si, COO of Lil­i­um, said: “The start of pro­duc­tion of the bat­tery packs is a proud moment for Lil­i­um. Bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy is cen­tral to the goal of deliv­er­ing sus­tain­able region­al air mobil­i­ty, includ­ing over­com­ing the chal­lenges of devel­op­ing and indus­tri­al­iz­ing a bat­tery pack that will meet the strin­gent safe­ty stan­dards of air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“With the start of pro­duc­tion of the Lil­i­um Jet’s unique high-per­for­mance air­craft bat­tery packs, Lil­i­um has laid a fur­ther cor­ner­stone towards real­iz­ing the vision of elec­tric avi­a­tion.”

Lilium’s pio­neer­ing bat­tery pack is com­prised of lithi­um-ion cells with sil­i­con-dom­i­nant anodes that will allow for high­er ener­gy, pow­er, and fast-charg­ing capa­bil­i­ties than graphite anode cells. Lead­ing automak­ers such as Mer­cedes, Porsche, and GM plan to incor­po­rate sil­i­con anode tech­nol­o­gy into their pre­mi­um elec­tric vehi­cles.

They are being assem­bled at Lilium’s pur­pose-built bat­tery fac­to­ry, locat­ed at Lilium’s head­quar­ters out­side Munich, with the aid of new gen­er­a­tion dig­i­tal tools that enable process con­trol, effi­cient data col­lec­tion and trace­abil­i­ty.

The com­pa­ny has been sup­port­ed in the design of the assem­bly line and ini­tial pro­duc­tion ramp up by sup­pli­ers with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in bat­tery indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, espe­cial­ly in the auto­mo­tive sec­tor.

The first units of the bat­tery assem­bly line will be used for ver­i­fi­ca­tion test­ing ahead of the Lil­i­um Jet’s first pilot­ed flight.

Each Lil­i­um Jet air­craft will be equipped with ten inde­pen­dent­ly func­tion­ing bat­tery packs that are designed to enable safe flight and land­ing, even in case of fail­ure of any sin­gle bat­tery pack.

Avatar photo

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.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769