German electric aircraft company to take flight via SPAC, launch eVTOL jet in 2024

SPAC mania has touched yet another area of transportation: urban air mobility.

Lilium, a Munich company developing electric personal aircraft, said Tuesday it would go public on Nasdaq via merger with special purpose acquisition company Qell Acquisition Corp.

The move follows similar SPAC announcements from Archer Aviation, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Joby Aviation, based in Santa Cruz, Calif.

At the helm of San Francisco-based Qell is Barry Engle, former president, North America, at General Motors. Qell focuses on next-generation and sustainable mobility and transportation.

The deal values Lilium at about $3.3 billion and is expected to close this quarter.

Along with the announcement to go public, Lilium launched its seven-seat electric vertical takeoff and landing jet, which will be the company's first aircraft to go into serial production. In Lilium and Qell's statement Engle called the eVTOL a "game changer for transportation."

Lilium says that the Lilium Jet can go 175 mph at 10,000 feet, with a range of more than 155 miles, a vision that the company has been working on for five years. The jet, which draws upon the company's full-scale five-seat electric air taxi prototype, is expected to be used primarily for intercity flights.

Lilium said commercial operations are expected to launch in 2024.

"Our vision is to create a sustainable and accessible mode of high-speed travel and bring this to every community," Lilium CEO Daniel Wiegand said in the statement. "Transport infrastructure is broken. It is costly in personal time, space consumption and carbon emissions. We are pursuing our unique electric jet technology because it is the key to higher-capacity aircraft, with lower cost per seat mile while delivering low noise and low emissions."

– Alexa St. John

What you need to know

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Roundup

Optimus, Polaris to deploy driverless GEM vehicles by 2023.

Autonomous-vehicle company Motional is teaming up with Lyft and Hyundai on a robotaxi that will arrive in some U.S. cities in two years.

Daimler says it will accelerate its shift to electric cars.

Porsche may need to team up with a partner to produce high-voltage battery cells for future models, the brand's head of development told Automotive News Europe.

Rivian amps up battery warranty, tops Tesla.

Self-driving truck startup Plus raised an extra $220 million from investors.

Lexus LF-Z Electrified concept offers glimpse of brand's future.

Kia is turning up the juice with the new EV6 all-electric crossover.

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Brain food

Electric vehicle batteries cannot be recharged at consistently high rates of power because of lithium plating, which occurs when a cell is stressed. Nanoscopic needlelike formations called dendrites grow and over time can cause a short circuit in lithium ion batteries that use conventional liquid-based electrolytes. StoreDot, an Israeli battery startup, believes it has the solution: Substitute the carbon in the graphite anode with atoms such as silicon that are in the same group on the periodic table.

Last mile

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