#1 – Fist full EV VTOL Jet take to the skies

A German startup, Lilium, founded in 2015 with the intent to develop the first fully electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet this week completed its first successful test flight. The vehicle, named Eagle, a two-seater prototype completed its first test flight in Bavaria, Germany. The test flight included a range of advanced maneuvers, including its signature mid-air transition from hover mode to wing-borne forward flight.

Lilium’s business plan provides a flying five-seater taxi on demand. The Lilium Jet has a cruising velocity of 300km/h (187mph) and range of 300km. The design consists of a 10-meter wingspan, 36 engines, and works on the canard concept with powered lift.

The company beats industry heavyweights Airbus at its own game. Airbus unveiled the Airbus Pop.up during the Geneva Auto Show in 2017.

#2 – LG-Chem Q1 Sales excels

LG Chem, the Korean battery vehicle manufacturer, this week announced it’s Q1 sales valued at $5.5Bln, showing growth of 33% year-on-year. More impressive though is that the company showed an increase in operating profits of 74% year-on-year. In our view, it provides a safety margin which could point to price decreases in the expected price war, similar the solar panel market as huge new plants is coming online over the next two years.

#3 – Tesla recall a buying opportunity

Tesla this week announced one of its largest voluntary recalls for 53,000 manufactured between February and October 2016. The recall is due to a fault in a third-party supplied component, potentially resulting in the handbrake not releasing. The recall is not viewed as negative and hardly had an impact on the share price as the company closed near its record price of $307.71 set earlier the week, still very well on the way to our first target of $320.
Tesla’s announcement that it would unveil its Semi-truck in September had analyst very excited, speculating that it would add billions to the companies bottom line and disrupt the sector. The company is expected to lease the batteries at $0.25 per mile saving trucking companies the $0.50 fuel charge.

#4 – Q1 EV sales for France, German, and China, two out three ain’t bad.

German (#9 on Top EV list), French (#7 on Top EV list), and Chinese (#1 on Top EV list) EV sales for Q1 was released this week. Both China and Germany saw huge year-on-year increases, while French EV sales flatlined. Read our blogs for a detailed breakdown of the sales.

#5 – More Concept’s and a few production-ready vehicles at Shanghai Auto Show

The New York and Shanghai Auto Show’s provided many newsworthy releases related to electric vehicle strategies, concept cars, and some productions cars. Although the New York auto show had all thirty plus electric vehicles available for sale in the State on view, the Shanghai Auto Show were the place to be for electric vehicle enthusiast. The VW Group teased its Audi eTron SUV and VW I.D. CROZZ concepts, which is only expected by 2019. Tired of all these old auto companies releasing concept after the other without having real competition for the Tesla available? Two production ready vehicles from newcomers Lucid Motors and NextEV‘s NIO brand were unveiled at the Chinese event. NIO’s ES8 seven seater SUV is expected to be available in China by the end of the year. The company also announced that it would add ten more units to its fleet of six EP9 supercars, priced at $1.48 million.