Wall Street is getting more bullish about eVTOL. That’s short for electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft—the new, lower-cost helicopter-like technology that is trying to disrupt aviation.
Oppenheimer launched coverage of two eVTOL names Tuesday: air-ride sharing network operator Blade Air Mobility (ticker: BLDE) and eVTOL maker Lilium (LILM). The broker rates both stocks at Buy.
Analyst Colin Rusch launched coverage of Lilium. He has a $24 price target on the stock. That’s up more than double the recent stock price of $10.61 a share.
His bullish take starts with the industry. “We see the potential for eVTOLs totransform urban and regional mobility partners for both people and cargo,” wrote Rusch. eVTOL aircraft are new and enabled by the falling cost of batteries. If costs are eventually low enough, it means that customers could fly in an air taxi for, say, $25 or $50 a ticket, and greatly reduce their commute times to work, an airport, and short vacations.
Rusch sees industry revenue hitting about $150 billion by 2035. That is almost 20% of global airline sales by then. For Lilium, he sees sales of $4.8 billion by 2027. “Lililum’s differentiated technology positions the company for safety and duty cycle advantages,” adds the analyst. “Lilium’s jet architecture is based on the company’s proprietary Ducted Electric Vectored Thrust technology, which we believe has crucial advantages over competitors: it reduces noise, expands flight path options, and improves redundancy and payload capacity.”
He believes in Lilium’s technology. Investors will have to learn to compare new technologies. The vehicles are still, essentially, brand new.
Lilium shares are about flat in early trading on a tough day for markets. The Nasdaq Composite is off about 2.3%. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are down about 1.7% and 1.2%, respectively.
Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein also initiated coverage of Blade stock Tuesday with a Buy rating and $14 price target. Blade is a little different than other eVTOL companies. It wasn’t to just buy the aircraft and operate a network—a little like Uber Technologies (UBER) of the skies.
Blade has become the “category leader” in Urban Air Mobility, according to the analyst. Helfstein believes the category will only grow as costs fall as eVTOL aircraft are eventually approved by aerospace regulators.
Blade stock isn’t getting the boost Lilium shares are Tuesday .That stock is down about 4.8% in Tuesday morning trading.
The industry is off to quite a start. Lilium and Blade along with Joby Aviation (JOBY) and Archer Aviation (ACHR) now have about nine analyst ratings among them, and all are Buy. The target prices range from about $14 to $24 for stocks trading at roughly $9 or $10 a share.
The average Buy-rating ratio for small-capitalization stocks is about 60%.
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