Comment: This is why air cab provider Lilium does not deserve a state bailout

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The fact that Lilium has regularly missed its own targets – is a given. After all, Tesla does it all the time, and an electric high-flyer is orders of magnitude more complex than an electric car. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that a start-up with such ambitious technology is always short of cash and is now insolvent. So is Germany once again missing out on the opportunity to keep cutting-edge technology in the country by failing to provide subsidies – and all because of a comparatively modest 100 million euros? (For comparison: the renovation of the Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim alone cost 13 times as much).

Ein Kommentar von Gregor Honsel

Gregor Honsel ist seit 2006 Redakteur bei Technology Review. Er glaubt, dass viele komplexe Probleme einfache, leicht verständliche, aber falsche Lösungen haben.

Lilium insolvency: Why aren't investors lining up?

No. There are good reasons for the federal government's refusal to pay. Firstly, if private investors are reluctant, why should taxpayers, of all people, take the risk? If there really is such a huge market for electric air cabs, as is often claimed –, why aren't investors lining up? It wouldn't be the first time that politicians have senselessly sunk taxpayers' money out of local patriotism. (The name Philipp Holzmann may still be familiar to the older ones among us. The younger ones will certainly remember all the rescue packages for Galeria Kaufhof).

Secondly, a decision in favor of Lilium would be somewhat arbitrary. Why should this particular start-up be helped and not others? It's not as if the federal government is completely avoiding supporting visionary technology. After all, it founded the Agency for Leap Innovations (Sprind) for precisely this purpose. However, all projects there are evaluated by experts to the best of their knowledge and belief. This is obviously not the case with Lilium.

Thirdly, this is not just about investing in a specific start-up, but also in a specific transportation system. Politicians should therefore also ask themselves whether they really need or want this system. There is much to suggest that air cabs do not really contribute to solving any problems. A little thought experiment will suffice. Imagine the Mittlerer Ring in Munich at rush hour. And now imagine a significant proportion of these incredibly large numbers of cars circling above you and looking for a free landing spot. Do we really want that?

Energy for air cabs could be put to better use elsewhere

What's more, air cabs consume an unnecessary amount of energy. "Taking off and landing vertically is the most inefficient way to move through the air," aerospace engineer Kay Plötner told Der Spiegel. The fact that the air cabs are to be charged with green electricity is not a counter-argument. This will be in short supply for the foreseeable future. Every kilowatt hour used for an air cab could be put to better use elsewhere.

Excessive motorized private transport cannot be combated by replacing it with another form of motorized private transport. So if we could use a new type of aircraft at all, it would probably be something like a flying long-distance bus. This would take up less space, money and energy per person.

A public bus for air transport?

Unfortunately, the principle of local public transport is not so easy to transfer to aircraft. After all, they can't let people on or off every few kilometers. Ridepooling doesn't work either. And without energy-hungry vertical take-off aircraft and space-consuming landing platforms in the city, passengers have to find a different way to get to the nearest airport each time.

Let's be clear: electric air cabs make no sense in terms of transport policy. The decarbonization of medium- and long-haul flights is highly desirable, but technically very difficult. So where exactly is the sweet spot for electric commercial aviation?

An ideal spot would be areas that are difficult to access, such as Norway with all its fjords, or countries with many scattered islands. But what about the close-knit network of Central Europe? The feeder flight from the airport to the city is often mentioned as a scenario. But wouldn't it be much easier to set up a rapid transit system or a dedicated lane for electric buses?

It would be more obvious to electrify as many of the existing domestic flights as possible, whether with batteries or fuel cells. However, the volume of passengers is likely to be limited. According to the ICCT, commuter aircraft with fewer than 19 seats currently only account for around four percent of all departures and 0.03 percent of passenger kilometers.

And if a new, attractive business model is built around electric shuttles, the question arises: won't this primarily compete with buses or trains? Or will it even generate additional traffic?

The longer you think about it, the smaller the niche for electric passenger planes becomes. They could make sense between cities with poor rail connections and their own regional airports, for example. In theory, it would usually be more efficient to expand the rail network. However, one could also say somewhat cynically that we are more likely to get long-range regional planes with super-high-performance batteries than a functioning rail network.

(dmk)