Denso Engines to Power Lilium eVTOL

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Aichi Prefecture-based automotive components manufacturer Denso, along with its US aerospace industry partner Honeywell, are working with prominent German eVTOL company Lilium to co-develop and manufacture the electric motors that will power the Lilium Jet.

Koji Ishizuka, Denso’s senior director of the Electric Sora-Mobi Business Promotion Department, explained: “Denso’s focus is powering the shift to a green, safe and seamless mobility future for all. We’re grateful to work with Honeywell and Lilium on making air travel cleaner and more efficient, and in doing so, we have the opportunity to apply our electrification expertise to vehicles on land and in the sky.”

Lilium is regarded as one of the most advanced eVTOL developers. It is working on its Lilium Jet which will have a flexible cabin architecture that can be configured to a luxury four-passenger cabin, a six-passenger shuttle cabin, or a cargo cabin.

According to Lilium, the electric motor that Denso and Honeywell are co-developing is “a proprietary, high-performance system” with an air-cooled design which will produce no carbon emissions during operation.

Lilium’s statement explains that “the e-motor has its rotor and stator in a centrifugal or ‘radial’ configuration, compared to traditional axial designs. This lowers the component’s weight, manufacturing costs, and susceptibility to foreign object damage. It also boasts industry-leading power density, with the first prototypes designed to extract over 100KW of power from a system weighing just over four kilograms.”

The Lilium Jet design is noted for its thirty ducted fan motors mounted on its wings and canards.

In his own comments, Lilium CEO Yves Yemsi said that his firm is delighted to partner with Denso and Honeywell on electric engine development, adding, “the collaboration with these two powerhouses takes us further along the path to revolutionizing regional air mobility.”