Lilium Aviation
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Why Florida residents may soon be seeing jet-powered ‘flying taxis’
Florida is renowned for its strange news stories. In recent weeks alone, one resident reported an alligator in her garage that turned out to be a pool floatie; another discovered a python in her washing machine; and a horse needed to be pulled out of a septic tank by firefighters.
Still, don’t dismiss Orlando residents who report seeing flying taxis overhead, because they may just be coming. Lilium Aviation, a five-year-old, Munich, Germany-based, venture-backed startup that designs and makes electric vertical take-off and landing jets, is reportedly seeking tax incentives from the city to build a 56,000-square-foot transportation hub with the promise that it will create 100 high-wage jobs in return.
According to the Orlando Business Sentinel, the proposed facility — a takeoff and landing area that would be part of Lilium’s first transportation network in the U.S. — would represent a $25 million investment and, according to the city’s own estimates, generate $1.7 million in economic impact in a 10-year period. (Lilium in September began separately exploring with Germany’s Düsseldorf Airport and Cologne Bonn Airport how to turn the two airports into regional air mobility hubs.)
It’s seemingly a smart time for Lilium — whose planes aren’t expected to be up and running until 2025 — to be talking with cities about additional airport revenue. Passenger traffic has fallen through the floor, owing to the pandemic, and cargo traffic has not been immune, either. Meanwhile, 95% of revenue from airports comes from aeronautical and non-aeronautical services.
Lilium also has a little more spending money after raising $35 million in fresh funding in June led by Baillie Gifford, the largest investor in Tesla — a round that brought the company’s total funding to date to $375 million.
Earlier investors in the company include Atomico, Tencent Holdings and Freigeist.
We sat down with Atomico founder Niklas Zennström in late 2016 when the firm had just led a €10 million Series A in Lilium. At the time, the bet seemed early, despite the existence of rivals like Terrafugia and AeroMobile, yet such vehicles may be an everyday reality sooner than imagined. Investors and founders seem to think so, at least. There are now at least 15 so-called flying cars and taxis in development.
Powered by WPeMatico
Lilium, the ambitious German air taxi company, picks London for its new software engineering base
Lilium, the ambitious Munich-based startup developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) device, has announced that London is to be its new software engineering base, flying in the face of Brexit, you may well say. This, says the company, will create “hundreds of high-end software engineering roles” in the U.K. capital city over the next five years.
Alongside designing and manufacturing a new type of jet, Lilium plans to launch a fully vertical “air taxi” service by 2025, which will require consumer-facing “hailing” apps and sophisticated software for fleet management, including maintenance, and scheduling flights on-demand. That system also will need to integrate with existing air traffic control regulations and systems, all of which isn’t trivial, to say the least.
The announcement comes in the slipstream of Lilium unveiling a new five-seater prototype and a maiden flight last month. This saw the full-scale, full-weight prototype successfully take off and land, following extensive ground testing.
Meanwhile, the German startup is disclosing a trio of new senior hires, including the appointment of Carlos Morgado, former chief technology officer (CTO) at Just Eat, to lead the development of the new London software engineering team as VP, Digital Technology.
In addition, Lilium has appointed Anja Maassen van den Brink as chief people officer (CPO), and Luca Benassi as chief development engineer. Maassen van den Brink joins Lilium from VodafoneZiggo. Benassi is said to bring more than 20 years of experience in the aerospace sector, having worked at NASA, Boeing and, most recently, Airbus, where he was a senior expert and head of Acoustics and Vibration.
Commenting on the choice of London as a base for the engineering team, Remo Gerber, chief commercial officer (CCO), comments: “Achieving our aims will require us to build one of the world’s most innovative and high-performing software engineering teams. While we recognize that talent is global, London offers us access to a rich talent pool and an environment that’s well-suited to delivering the extraordinary.”
Of course, how rich that talent pool will remain after Brexit is yet to be seen. But for now it’s clear that Lilium believes that long-term London has more upsides than downsides, regardless of the current Brexit impasse.
Powered by WPeMatico
Lilium is almost as ambitious as European startups come. The Munich-based company is developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet, which it hopes will one day power an on-demand “air taxi” service, arguably making flying cars a reality.