The CEO of Lilium said that many skeptics of his company have “turned silent” since Lilium announced a fresh capital raise plan in May and is “not worried at all” about the company’s ability to achieve type certification by 2025.
The German startup saw its share price plummet to below 40 cents in late April amid swirling doubts about the company’s cash runway. Those fears were partially quashed in early May when the company announced a capital raise for up to $250 million, led by existing investor Tencent of China, followed closely by news that a subscale powered prototype had begun testing in Europe’s largest wind tunnel.
“I think we had been talked into a bit of a depression,” Lilium CEO Klaus Roewe says in an interview with Aviation Week. “People were wondering if we were a viable company, and our share price was in free-fall, so we knew we had to take action to break that downward spiral. We definitely feel much better now—although really nothing has fundamentally changed; we knew our incumbent investor base was strongly behind us, and we also know there are new ones coming in. We have many advanced talks underway.”
The Lilium CEO also dismissed doubts raised by some industry watchers about the design of the Lilium Jet, which has disc loading that is much higher than many open propeller electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing architectures.
“I understand doubts and this design is very rigorous, but people can see what we have demonstrated, and nothing counters the physical demonstration,” Roewe says. “Actually, after our recent announcements, it seems to me that many of the ones who criticized us the loudest before have since become very silent now, and I think that really tells you something.”
“And honestly, I don’t care—let the critics talk,” Roewe says. “We know what we know. We’re doing two months in the wind tunnel, we have our demonstrator flights, and we know how good our prediction methods are, so I’m not really bothered. Sooner or later, I think the last voice who criticizes will also go silent.”
Lilium is operating on a fairly aggressive timeline, with plans to build and perform manned flight tests with a type conforming aircraft by the second half of 2024, before entry-into-service in 2025. Roewe acknowledged there is a risk that timeline could slip, but he said he still believes the plan is “totally feasible.”
“If you look at the nominal case, it’s ambitious but it’s completely doable,” Roewe says. “But there is always uncertainty. It’s always possible [the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)] could change their mind on requirements or reconsider a request from two or three years ago and decide it’s not valid anymore. But they are working so closely with us, witnessing the tests and exchanging data, that I would say the risk should be minimal. But there is residual risk, that is true.”
“We know what we need to do; getting there will be a technical challenge, but that’s under our control,” Roewe adds. “It’s true that we have one of the most ambitious designs, but we want to be among the most serious companies in the long-term.”
