Lilium, developer of the all-electric vertical take-off and landing (“eVTOL”) jet, today announced it has partnered with Honeywell and DENSO, who will co-develop and manufacture the Lilium Jet’s electric motor (e-motor) that will power the Lilium Jet’s engines.
“Honeywell is already developing the Lilium Jet’s avionics and flight control systems and invested in Lilium in 2021” reports the press release and that Honeywell “also has an alliance with automotive giant DENSO to develop aerospace electric propulsion solutions and that through this collaboration, the Lilium Jet’s e-motor will benefit from Honeywell’s aerospace expertise as well as DENSO’s experience in high-quality volume production.”
“The Lilium e-motor is a proprietary, high-performance system, on which Lilium, DENSO and Honeywell teams have been working for nearly two years” the press release adds and “it is expected to bring exceptional performance and reliability with zero operating emissions typically associated with commercial jet engines. An air-cooled design offers structural simplicity and ease of maintenance compared with traditional liquid cooling systems, and therefore has the potential to significantly reduce aircraft operating costs. 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 4kg.”
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(Image: Lilium)
