Foreign eVOL air car manufacturer EHang is taking to the stars of interior China.
After completing the second electric air taxi planes in Guangzhou and Hefei in December, EHang made its first ever passenger-carrying flights to Taiyuan on Sunday.
The visits, completed using EHang’s self-flying EH216-S heat car, follow the company’s shipment of 10 plane to Xishan Tourism, which in May signed a purchase get for 50 products. In order to launch flying hospitality and sightseeing services throughout North China, the companies have a tentative agreement in which EHang will provide 450 plane over the next two years.
” We have gradually delivered EH216-S by batches to Taiyuan, Hefei, Wuxi, Wencheng, Zhuhai, and other places, and are actively assisting our local partners who are creating application scenarios to obtain]air operator certification ]”, said Zhao Wang, chief operating officer of EHang.
Last week, the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority ( CAAC ) issued EHang its own air operator certificate.
The province of Shanxi, in which Taiyuan is located, has been designated by the Chinese government as a national demonstration province for the country’s low-altitude economy, an analog to the advanced air mobility ( AAM ) industry forming in the U. S. and elsewhere. The largest town and capital of the area, Taiyuan, is regarded as a political and economic hub.
The measure provides for the construction of infrastructure and additional features necessary for daily service, in addition to funding regular, low-altitude tourism flights in the area.
Jicheng Yang, executive vice president of Taiyuan and a part of the city’s metropolitan committee, stated that Taiyuan is a federal civil unmanned aerial vehicle check area with the potential to grow the aviation sector. ” Taiyuan may enhance policy support, necessary promises, and innovation features, and promote the heavy integration of technical innovation and the low-altitude economy”.
Using the title, Xishan Tourism intends to establish low-altitude tour and travel routes to nearby places like Yuquan Mountain, Paddy Field Park, and Juewei Mountain.
On Sunday, two EH216-S plane, carrying two travellers each, took off and flew freely from Paddy Field Park in a service attended by local government leaders and business professionals. Representatives from the newly established Taiyuan Xishan Ecological Tourism Demonstration Zone were two of the customers.
Xishan Tourism, though, said it is still working toward “regular operation” —in other words, the flights are not yet routine, as is the case in Guangzhou and Hefei.
Yaozong Chang, president of Xishan Tourism, said that he plans to work with EHang and other partners to create several flight camps or getting pads, as well as several low-altitude tour routes for pilotless eVTOL within Taiyuan and near scenic areas. We want to create a low-altitude economy professional park, establish a new metropolitan air traffic management system, and establish a mobility network for low-altitude travelers, and.
EHang at the event even demonstrated its longer-range, passenger-carrying VT-30, firefighting EH216-F, and EH216-L for goods transportation.
In May, the company completed the region’s second passenger flight carrying eVTOL flights in the United Arab Emirates, which included all four plane.
That places the business far ahead of American rivals Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, both of which are developing manned air cars but have yet to get any of those three approvals. In 2025, both businesses are aiming for corporate rollouts.
Wisk Aero, a subsidiary of Boeing’s air taxi business, is developing a self-flying design, but it wo n’t be ready to launch it until the end of the decade.