Good morning, everyone. I'm Greg Conrad with the Jefferies Aerospace and Defense Equity Research Team. Welcome to the Second Annual Jefferies eVTOL AAM Summit. Today we are lucky enough to have Lilium's Rama Bondada with us. I'm gonna jump in right to questions, but Rama, thanks for being here today. Maybe just to start, can you maybe tell us a little bit more about Lilium? You know, for those of us who might not be as familiar with the company, you know, can you talk about what differentiation there is for the company and maybe some-- versus some of the other players in the market?
Yeah. Great question, Greg, and thanks for having us here, and it was great to meet with the Jefferies team. Yeah, so I think when you think of the eVTOL sector, and you start digging into Lilium, we do really sit outside of how people traditionally think of eVTOLs, really on kind of five major areas. And the first area I'll start out with is the management team. Our chairman is Tom Enders. He was the President and CEO of Airbus from 2007 to 2019, arguably the best 12-year run that Airbus has had. Our President and CEO is Klaus Roewe, who ran the A320 family of aircraft from 2009 to 2020 or 2010 to 2000 or 2020.
Again, under his watch, the A320 became the best-selling and the most successful program in modern aviation history. He was part of the team that stood up the production lines in Alabama and in China for the A320. Under his watch, the A320neo went through design, development, certification, and production, went from zero aircraft to over 600 aircraft per year. That is the fastest ramp in aviation history outside of wartime. So you know, we... And our COO was the head of Airbus supply chain, both on the commercial and the military side. So, you know, across the board, head of sales, also Airbus. He ran Airbus Asia, and then Airbus Middle East, and then more recently ran Honeywell, Honeywell's European sales efforts.
So across the board, we have very highly talented, experienced aerospace engineers, some of the best that Europe has to offer. You know, so when I got the call last year to join the team, you get a call from someone like Klaus, who knows aerospace, you figure, you know, when the best are descending on a tiny little company in Munich, they know something that I don't. And so it was kind of a no-brainer. Second area where we really differentiate ourselves is around the regional air mobility and urban air mobility. When people think of eVTOLs, they tend to think of urban air taxis. We are not urban air taxi. We're looking at flights that are 30 miles and longer.
We are economically on par with any of our peers on anything 30 miles and under because we have the largest cabin, six passengers plus the pilot. And this gives us an economic advantage even on the short routes. But really, we're focusing on regional air mobility, connecting cities. So think JFK to Center City, Philadelphia, Manhattan to Center City, Philly. By the time you get out to 2030 and our batteries in, you know, the next generation of batteries, and we can talk about that in a little bit, you can start connecting cities like Boston and New York, New York and D.C. And it starts becoming a much broader range of green electric transportation. And again, we're vertical takeoff and landing, so just need a heliport or a vertiport for us to land.
And in that regional air mobility kind of leads to the third area of differentiation for us, which is our technology. Our technology really is built upon this longer-range mission. It came out of, you know, our four founders. It was their PhD thesis at MIT, which is the European MIT, Munich Institute of Technology. And this was their PhD thesis in 2015, that they built the company and the program around. But you know, in 2021, 2022, when the company came public, they kind of understood that, you know, while they had this great technology, they've never actually designed, developed, certified, and produced an aircraft. And so they brought, you know, they attracted the Airbus team to join them.
And that technology, we have the IP and the proprietary knowledge around the battery systems, the battery management systems, and the electric propulsion, and really the electric ducted fan. We're the only ones that are doing electric ducted fan versus the open rotor concept that everyone else uses. That really leads to the fourth differentiator, and that's safety. Because we are using this electric ducted fan, we can get to a much higher level of safety. We are regulated by EASA, being a European company, but traded in the U.S. on the Nasdaq. So EASA is taking a 10 to the ninth level of safety standard for eVTOL. 10 to the ninth exponential means one failure per a billion flights.
In the U.S., it looks like the FAA is going on a 10 to the seventh, maybe 10 to the eighth, so one failure per 10 million flights. So technically, we are certifying to 100x more safer than our peer group in the U.S. Helicopters tend to be 10 to the seventh. A320, A350, your large commercial aircraft that we all travel on, those are 10 to the ninth. So we are certifying to the same level of safety as a large commercial airliner. This means no single point of failure, redundancies in major systems and in subsystems. And this really makes our aircraft a global aircraft. It's gonna operate in all regions, and not just be limited to those regions that are going to a lower safety standard.
And this also gives us an advantage on our fifth differentiator, which is really our go-to-market strategy. We're the only ones who are addressing, first, the premium market, which we identify as an existing market. This is, think executive helicopters. Most executive helicopter missions, 80% are for 150 miles and less, and we basically could cover that. And then 20% of biz jet missions currently are for under 100 miles, so again, we cover that. Our physical range of the aircraft is 155. When you throw in reserves that are mandated by EASA, we can get to 110 miles on our current battery technology. And then the second market is the fleet.
A lot of airlines are looking at us as a last-leg solution to their front-of-the-cabin offerings, so their premium class cabin. Our aircraft has a business jet feel. You can stand in it. There's no shoulder-to-shoulder seating for the six passengers. You feel like you're in a business jet, so it really becomes an extension of the first class cabin. And, you know, given that the cost is roughly the cost of an Uber ride, it's about $3 per seat per mile, and that would include the operator's margin. We're not looking to operate the aircraft. We are going to do OEM sales and aftermarket, and we're selling our aircraft to operators and to the premium class. So think, you know, NetJets is part of our backlog.
And for example, Bristow, the executive helicopter company, is part of our backlog. And then we also have your major airlines, like on the MOU we announced with the Lufthansa. We have one with Saudi Airlines, Azul, those type of airlines. So that's kind of where those management team, regional air mobility, technology, safety, and go-to-market strategy really is what are the main differences, and that's basically, you know, a pretty broad area to be different from everyone else.
I think that almost covered everything. Just kidding. And then, you know, there's varying estimates for the size of the overall eVTOL industry, you know, from hundreds of billions to trillions. How do you kind of think about the market, or what's your ballpark number?
Yeah, so we kind of looked at all of the estimates out there. You know, McKinsey has a pretty good study. Roland Berger has a pretty good study, and they range from, you know, 5,000 aircraft fleets to 100,000 aircraft fleets by the time you get to 2040. You know, our estimate is roughly by 2035, we think the TAM is about $255 billion. That includes OEM, aftermarket, operator revenue. And specifically for our aircraft, which is, again, different mission than a lot of the other ones, we think there is a market for about 4,200 aircraft per year, about 500 in the premium sector, so think kind of where individuals, executive helicopters, biz jets, and then about 3,700 for fleet operations for airlines.
Again, that's based upon our mission, which is 100-mile-plus routes. You know, that's where, you know, I think for the other peer or others, who are doing more of the urban air taxi, they're going to have a different TAM, on a per-year basis.
And then you launched the Lilium Jet, which leverages jet technology via pivoting electrically powered ducted fans in the wing, which you talked about a little bit before. But how did you land on this design? And given it's not a design that is seen by many of your competitors, you know, can you just maybe talk about some of the advantages?
Yeah. Yeah, that's. So we kind of the whole company was founded upon the electric ducted fan, and it's the most efficient for longer distances. So some of the differences between jet, which we really are the only ones that are doing, and we're really the only ones in the regional air mobility space, and the open rotor, which is the more common one that you see our peer group go with. And it's a very similar flight physics and disk loading, the same things that you see with prop jets versus commercial jetliners is exactly the same, on the aerodynamics, too. Basically, when you have an open rotor, your lift is a lot easier with an open rotor, and you're less efficient in cruise than a jet engine.
The jet engine, you need more thrust and power on lift and landing, but you are usually 50% or greater efficiency in cruise. So, for example, we, you know, when you look at the basic disk loading chart, which, you know, NASA put out, I think, 80 years ago, and every aircraft since has basically fallen into that category, so it's a very accurate chart. And we know we need about twice the amount of lift, energy and power and thrust that an open rotor would need on takeoff and landing. And then for an eVTOL, that's maybe a minute, including reserves, for takeoff and maybe another minute, minute and a half, including reserves for landing. But the rest of that 40, 50-mile flight, 100-mile flight, we're operating at 50% more efficiency.
And that same construct also works in the commercial aerospace area. So when you look at, you know, when people put you on a little puddle jumper, you're usually only going 100- 200 miles, versus if you're going across, you know, a longer distance, you want to be on a jet because of the efficiencies, but also because of noise. There's less noise in the interior cabin, less vibration, and there's a higher level of safety with jet. So all of these kind of tied our technology with our mission and kind of put them together on that concept. So once you want, you go over. You know, this is why executive helicopters don't fly more than you know, 80% of the missions are under 100 miles, is because it's not a pleasant experience being on a helicopter.
Where if you're on a jet, it's a much more smoother ride, it's a much more pleasant ride, and much more faster, too.
And then, I mean, that covers what the advantages are. You talked a little bit about, you know, targeted end markets and customers, but I mean, is there anyone who you view as maybe your largest competitor in the market, given the differentiated technology?
So on the technology front right now, there isn't a competitor, and I think a lot of it is because we have the IP around the electric ducted fan and how that works. And so if anyone is out there trying to do that, they would have to kind of figure out how to get around the technology that we own. But the peer group, you know, we kind of look at the eVTOL sector as another way to divide it, is to look at how the approach is done. So besides us, and there's one other peer that you guys cover, Eve. Eve comes out of Embraer, we come out of, you know, basically our team is Airbus. The rest of the sector is coming from it, from an automotive or a CRM, ERP software side.
There really isn't any pure play aerospace guys besides us and Eve that understand how to certify an aircraft or has experience in certifying an aircraft. And as you know, Greg, like, the automotive manufacturing and aerospace manufacturing, it's not really apples and oranges, it's more like, you know, Apple iPads and oranges, right? It's as different as you can get. And so we do kind of look at it as that gives us a major advantage, in that we know how to, you know, not just build the aircraft, we know how to sell it and how to set up our operators who buy our aircraft. It's also why we, I think, you know, us and our Brazilian friends are also focused on the aftermarket. Because we have...
You know, Klaus ran Airbus Commercial Services for three years for the A320, and so he saw the margins that you get there, right? When you, when you stack aerospace up on a ROIC basis, the best is aftermarket, then OEM, then network, and then the bottom is infrastructure. So we're focusing on those top two. And when it comes to the aftermarket, owning proprietary rights, particularly around the battery, 90% of our bill of materials comes from our suppliers. You know, our largest supplier is Honeywell. They're also an investor in our company. They also do...
The advantage of having tier one aerospace suppliers, so think of, you know, we have Raytheon as a, as a big supplier, Aciturri, Astronics, GKN, I mentioned Honeywell, Palantir does a lot of the work for us on our cyber and software side. And Palantir and Peter Thiel are also owners within Lilium. The advantage that you get when you start going down the path of having tier one aerospace suppliers is, they know how to certify components and subcomponents. So a lot of the certification work is done by people who, you know, Honeywell, when it comes to, you know, quality, they're top-notch, and then when it comes to, you know, safety and experience, they're, you know, the best, you know, out there. And they're the ones doing subcomponent certification and testing.
We're doing the certification for the assembly, but those subcomponents are critical, and having them as your ally and an investor becomes critical. So for example, like Honeywell, you know, they developed a thermal cooling system for the F-22 Raptor. They then scaled it to commercial for the A350, and now we're going to be the first small aircraft to have that same thermal cooling system on our aircraft. And that's a major advantage, because that means that we don't need any infrastructure on the ground for our aircraft. We just need a CCS charger. So if you have a Tesla Supercharger at home, you theoretically could land on your driveway, charge it, and take off. There's no cooling tanks needed.
There's no, you know, thermal cooling management trailers that need to cool the aircraft as you charge it, and that's the advantage of having, you know, these tier one aerospace suppliers kind of giving us the knowledge base. And I think that differentiates us a little bit when we look at our peer group, too. And again, that comes from the heritage of the aerospace side of our company.
And then, you know, so a 150-mile range, you know, one of the leader amongst peers, six passengers plus a pilot. How did you land on, on that range and, and design? I mean, we talked about the technology, but was that based on technology limitations, or was it more, you know, target applications?
So it's a little bit of both. So we have two test aircraft that are flying, they've been flying for four years. Those actually were originally built to be two-seaters and four-seaters. But when you look at the economics and you want to travel further, the more seats you have, the cheaper it is. So our operating cost, like I mentioned, is $3 per passenger mile. And that's assuming a 75% load factor, so four and a half seats. That's roughly the cost of an Uber. And that really is the advantage you get from having the larger cabin, is it gives you that better economics. And so that, that's kind of how we settled on that. The 110-mile operating range of the aircraft, that's really dictated by our batteries.
You know, our battery technology was new in 2021. Now it's going to be pretty common. Porsche, Volkswagen, GM are all basically switching to the same battery technology we have, starting with their 2025, 2026 model, or 2026, 2027 models. And so that really is what has been dictating the range, and that range increases as the battery increases on a 2x basis. So what that means is, if we have a 10% increase in power and energy, that increases our range 40%. So a 30% increase in power and energy would increase our range by 60%. And the reason why is because nothing changes on the reserve side, and that's 30% currently on our battery that needs to be saved for the, for the reserves. That doesn't change.
So all the increased power and energy goes straight to the mission and increases your range. And that's the way our aircraft is built. All you do is you switch out the battery packs. You don't need to recertify the aircraft, and all of a sudden, now your aircraft has more use cases and more routes that it can fly, and you're just switching out the battery packs.
Then you've targeted FAA and EASA certification first, given you're based in Europe. When do you think you'll be able to begin commercial operations, and when do you expect to begin, you know, certification in other regions?
Yeah, so EASA, we expect our entry into service to be 2026. Our first manned flight is scheduled for later this year. And then usually it's a 12-18-month certification process. The advantage we have, and, you know, I think the narrative a couple of years ago was like, "Oh, EASA's safety standard is too high for eVTOLs," but that's kind of shifted because we basically have everything we need from EASA at this point on guidelines. We know, you know, the FAA is probably two years behind on the start point, so EASA started this process in 2019, FAA started in late 2020, early 2021. We already know what we need to do on our means of compliance.
We already know what we need to do for certification, and a lot of it has to do with this higher safety standard and also the philosophical differences between EASA and FAA. Both sides use performance-based testing, where the aircraft has to stand on its own legs. It's not about pilot training, it's not about on-ground, you know, equipment and facilities and training. It's about the aircraft, and that's really a philosophical difference between the two. And so that gives us a lot more understanding of, okay, this is our aircraft, this is what we need to certify, this is what EASA says we need to do in order to get that certification. That guidelines is already there.
The FAA technically still hasn't guided whether it's a one-pilot or two-pilot aircraft, and based upon their guidance so far, the reserve requirement would mean that only us and one other aircraft from eVTOL that's currently being designed would be able to fly in the U.S. So they still have a lot of rules that they're going through. So I think we're going to be certified with EASA, one, because I think they'll be ready before FAA. And then usually there is a G-1 reciprocity that you have with FAA, and usually that's two to six months once you're certified in EASA, that you then it gets transferred over to the FAA.
There might be other parts of the world, other regions, whether it's in the Middle East or in China or elsewhere, that might come out with quicker certification guidelines and authority. But the ones that tend to be the standard, the FAA and EASA, they probably will be this higher safety standard, and they may not be the first. But when we look at the market sizing, you know, we think U.S. is the largest market, followed by Europe and then China. And a lot of it has to do with the number of high population cities you have that are within 100 miles that you can connect with eVTOL technology.
And then, I mean, you talked about the, the supply base before. You've obviously invested, you know, a significant amount in R&D. Can you maybe talk about the, the high IP portions of the aircraft and maybe where you've leveraged off-the-shelf components?
Yeah. So what it is, our most of our patents are around, I'd say, about, I think it's like 40-45% is on the battery systems, and another 40-45% is around our electric propulsion systems. So that primarily makes up, you know, the vast majority of where our proprietary knowledge is, and we think those are the two most important parts of an eVTOL. You know, we kind of built the company, and we're building the aircraft around long-term thinking. So we think eVTOL is ideal for, call it a 200-250 mile mission and less, and once you go beyond that, you would want more of an electric, conventional takeoff and landing aircraft. And based upon the current...
You know, I hate to use the term Moore's law, but there's like a kind of like a Moore's law in battery, where we've seen over the last several decades that power and energy density increases roughly about 6% per year for batteries. If you assume 4.5% increase, and you stretch that out for 20 years, you can get to an aircraft that flies 1,200 miles, electric conventional takeoff and landing aircraft, which we have the technology for and the patents for, and that would cover 80% of all commercial flights today. We kind of view it as flights that can be flown by battery because of how economically efficient it is versus hydrogen or sustainable aviation fuels and how clean it is versus kerosene.
It's very similar price right now to kerosene, which is what we use now, but it's way cleaner. We think people will use battery technology for that. And so when we put out our roadmap, the eVTOL is just our... You know, this is our first aircraft that we're bringing to the market with our technology, but the ultimate end goal is that we want to own that under 1,200 mile route in commercial aviation with a CTOL, electric CTOL aircraft. And, you know, that's not something that will happen, you know, till well into next decade or, you know, 2040s. But we think we're a lot closer than I think a lot of people have realized.
I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit, but you've seen some initial orders from current operators, but you've also entered into some agreements for certain partners to be exclusive dealers of private aircraft sales. Can you maybe talk about the outlook for the private eVTOL user and how you expect that market to develop?
Yeah. So, what we're doing with our production is that our first year, so we enter into service in 2026, the first couple of years, we're only going to be focused on the premium market. It's the same aircraft, it's just you have four seats, and you have some bells, bells, and whistles. You know, some people may want, you know, a, a large screen TV or, you know, a kitchen or something in it, right? And so we're focusing on that because it's an existing market, right? So we, the infrastructure is there. It's an existing market with executive helicopters and, and biz jets. And then we would look to move to the fleet side, the airline side, where they still need some time to set up some of the infrastructure.
On the premium side, you know, like, for example, NetJets basically was telling us that you're the only eVTOL we can, we can really buy because we don't own any propeller aircraft, and our customers don't want to be in propeller aircraft. Then another important item that I wasn't even aware of till I joined Lilium, that for high net worth individuals, their life insurance voids if they get on an aircraft that's less than 10 to the ninth. So getting on a helicopter could void their life insurance. So a lot of them don't even want to fly on anything that's less safe than a jet, and we're the only eVTOL jet available. So it really gives us a chance to kind of monopolize that premium market, before there's other entrants, you know, down the road.
We kind of look at it as a very great area to start out with because of the existing infrastructure and then also get the higher price point. You know, we have said in our filings that on the premium side, we focus. Our sales price is roughly $10 million. That's our ask price, list price, and that includes maintenance, repair, operations, a warranty period, and a certain number of battery pack replacements. And on the fleet side, we look at $6 million-$7 million, and that also, again, that's our ask, our list price, and that also has an element of repair and services in there too.
So the idea is that we can start off with this higher price point and also, and then as we kind of go through the learning curves, again, to take advantage of those higher margins.
And then maybe just sticking with learning curve, how do you think about the planned production ramp once the aircraft is certified? I mean, you've begun manufacturing the first production jet. How do you think about learning curve and maybe implications for price at scale?
Yeah. So we haven't really gone through our full. We haven't, we haven't guided the market on what our production rates would be in 2030 or, what we have said is that our first full assembly line will be able to produce 400 aircraft per year, and our first full battery pack, assembly line will be doing roughly about 24,000 battery packs. There's 10 battery packs per aircraft. And you also need reserves, battery packs, and, and, and then also in the aftermarket. But we haven't really said, you know, given much guidance on beyond that. And then we have said by 2035, we think the market is about 4,200 aircraft. We don't expect to be 100% of it, but if we're 25% of it, we think we're going to be well ahead of our business plan.
And then, I mean, maybe just to wrap it up, we like asking everyone this question, but what are you most excited about, you know, as the industry moves closer to entry into service?
Yeah. No, there's another reason why just being in the sector and being in eVTOL is, is so exciting, is that when you think about aerospace, the last major step forward we had in technology was in the 1930s, when the jet engine came out, and then really went into commercialization post-World War II. And now we're seeing the next major step forward in aerospace with electric aircraft and vertical takeoff and landing. And so to be on, you know, you know, I've spent my entire career basically in aerospace, started off as a systems analyst on the F-35 at Lockheed and then covering the sector. To be a part of something that hasn't happened in 80 years in, in this sector, it's, it's super exciting, and it's a lot sooner than I think most people realize.
In the next, you know, call it, you know, two, three, four years, we're going to be starting to see these aircraft on a pretty regular basis, and they'll become pretty ubiquitous by the time you get into the 2030s. And to be on the cutting edge of that is something that it's pretty exciting.
We'll leave it at that, Rama. Really appreciate your time today and look forward to talking to you.