Lilium strikes sales deal with Saudi Arabia for up to 100 eVTOL aircraft

Lilium, an electrical aviation institution based successful Germany, says it has secured a binding income statement for up to 100 electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) craft with Saudia Group, which operates the largest hose bearer successful Saudi Arabia and is wholly owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The statement is simply a “firm order” for 50 Lilium jets, with an enactment to acquisition up to 50 more, the institution said. The woody follows a 2022 memorandum of knowing betwixt Lilium and Saudia to research ways successful which battery-powered multi-rotor craft tin code the region’s proscription challenges.

The presumption of the woody were not disclosed, but it has the imaginable to beryllium worthy hundreds of millions of dollars. Lilium has said it volition merchantability its Pioneer aircraft for $10 cardinal to idiosyncratic buyers successful the US looking to swap their polluting backstage jets with thing much environmentally friendly.

Lilium is 1 of a fistful of companies that wants to regenerate noisy, polluting helicopters and determination craft with all-electric, multi-rotor vehicles designed for abbreviated hops betwixt adjacent airports oregon speedy trips from a dense, municipality halfway to a section airport.

The Lilium jet features an egg-shaped fusillade with 2 wings, 1 fore and the different aft. A full of 30 batter-electric motors are built into the wings, which tin tilt downward for vertical takeoff and hovering and past determination flush with the helping for guardant flight.

Lilium is not the archetypal eVTOL institution to spot a imaginable marketplace successful the Middle East. China’s Ehang has been investigating its ain vehicles successful Mecca for a imaginable aboriginal aerial taxi service. Two others, Eve and Joby, person some signed akin agreements with Saudi-based aviation companies for aboriginal sales.