electric passenger drone is set to take off  on a test flight in a couple of minutes.

We're getting a sneak peek at the technology.

From electric cars to scooters,  

the world is looking for cleaner and  more efficient modes of transportation.

Most of these efforts are focused on how we move  

around on the ground. But what  about the future of flying cars

Technically known as vertical  take-off and landing aircraft or VTOL,  

companies around the world are racing  to develop flying passenger drones.

The reason? These aircraft could be big business.

The urban air mobility market  could be worth $9 trillion in 2050,  

skyrocketing from its tiny beginnings right now.

While that is some way off,  one of the companies hoping  

for a big slice of that growing  pie is German contender Lilium.

This is the fifth generation of  Lilium's fully electric aircraft.

The company has been carrying out test  flights at the ATLAS flight test center  

here in the south of Spain as it looks to hone the  technology and prove the safety of the vehicle.

The current test vehicle is not what Lilium  hopes to finally brings into production in 2023.

The company says the final jet will have  a cruise speed of 175 miles per hour and a  

range of about 155 miles. That's roughly  the distance from London to Manchester.

Matthias Meiner, a co-founder of Lilium,  took me through the technology behind the  

jet and the company's vision  of a premium user experience.

You step inside the cabin, it feels very, like  high quality, you don't have that feeling that you  

might have today in a helicopter shuttle service  where everything's loud and rattling and noisy.

So it's really from that kind  of business jet experience.  

But bringing that eventually  to the to the wider audience

While the technology appears  to be progressing quickly,  

what exactly is the business  potential for companies like Lilium?

I caught up with Alexander  Asseily, vice chairman of Lilium.

The potential for EVTOL is really to rethink how  regions connect internally and with other regions.

So today, if you want to move over  regional distances, what do you do?

Taking a long car journey, taking a train,  

were you taking a short flight from New York  to Boston, London to Paris or something.

And the way to tell is that essentially  takes some of those long car journeys.

And it says, "Wait, why spend  

two - three hours in a car you when you can  do it in less than 45 minutes in an eVTOL?"

And from a business perspective,  

now, what's the potential? How are  you thinking about business models

So we have to think about it in two ways. One is  we've got certain kinds of customers like NetJets,

for example, or Lux aviation,  who want to buy aircraft from us,  

and then operate those aircraft  within whatever model they use,

like either fractional ownership  or shuttle routes, right.

There's also a ton of opportunity  we're seeing which we've announced  

in Europe, also in the US and Florida, which  is to run our own routes with partners.

Passenger-carrying drones still face a  number of challenges, from the development of  

infrastructure such as landing pads and charging  stations to safety concerns from regulators.

If the industry is to truly take off, then  there are some big issues still to address.

The real challenge is really understanding what  

the technology is and how it's  going to function in the field.

We think the aerospace industry is awfully mature  and has very strict standards for good reasons.

But this is going to be a technology that  starts to test the edges of those regulations.

It's not just Lilium vying to  make flying cars a reality.

A handful of companies across  the world from EHang in China  

to Joby Aviation in the U.S.  are hoping to fly ahead.

We're in a great spot to kind of move  forward towards this, what we call a  

conforming aircraft, a preproduction  prototype. So that's going to happen,  

we're going to start assembling that in 2023.

And then it's going to be about  a year and a half of final test  

campaign where essentially we take  a bunch of boxes, and then in 2025  

the plan is we will get all types certificate  and we will launch our commercial operation.

So, don't expect to see flying cars around your  city just yet. But with every successful take-off  

and landing made by prototype aircraft like this,  the future gets just that little bit closer.

This is going to be a decade long process  of development and growing the market.

And so really, we're looking at the  middle of the decade when this becomes  

reality for people in a way that they can  see it and feel it and participate in it.

In terms of mass adoption, we're really  looking out past 2030, for the broad adoption.