China allows EHang to begin trials for flying-taxi operations

HONG KONG – China gave EHang Holdings the go-ahead to begin trial air-taxi operations in 2023, a step towards the company’s goal of launching the world’s first commercial service

using the futuristic battery-powered craft

.

EHang said its autonomous, two-passenger EH216-S secured the country’s first type certificate signifying airworthiness from regulators.

This will allow the company, which is based in Guangzhou, Guangdong, to work with local partners and conduct aerial tours of scenic locations such as Tianchi Lake in Xinjiang province and OH Bay in Shenzhen, it said.

The EH216-S, priced at 2.16 million yuan (S$412,000), has eight arms jutting out from its centre and is equipped with 16 propellers, each with its own electric motor. It can travel at about 100kmh for 25 minutes, according to EHang, which declined to say how much a flying-taxi tour might cost.

Friday’s move by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) gives EHang a potential edge over a crowded field of rivals in the United States and Europe racing to meet stringent certification guidelines.

Air taxis in development use multiple new technologies – including batteries to power the craft and innovative types of materials – that make them more complex for regulators to evaluate.

“Getting a type certificate means having a ticket to be profitable,” said EHang founder and chief executive officer Hu Huazhi. “It also gives us first-mover advantages compared with the US.”

Developers of so-called eVTOLs, or electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, have suffered periodic setbacks that underscore the safety challenges involved in designing, manufacturing and operating air taxis.

Britain’s Vertical Aerospace blamed a bonding issue for a high-profile crash in August.

Others targeting certification in the near term include Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation in the US, and Germany’s Volocopter, which aims to

operate a service during the 2024 Paris Olympics

.

Initial models from each of those companies require a pilot, unlike the EH216-S. Archer is working with Boeing’s Wisk subsidiary on future autonomous flight technology.

Each company is losing money while it seeks to bring aircraft to market. However, regulators are taking a cautious approach.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in July said it did not expect to see air taxis over US cities in numbers before 2028. The chief executive of Archer, meanwhile, told the Financial Times in June that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s guidelines will make it “extremely hard” to bring the vehicles to market.

Some start-ups, including Google co-founder Larry Page’s Kittyhawk project, have been forced to wind down.

China has made development of eVTOLs a priority. Should its trials meet the country’s regulatory standards, EHang would gain revenue and have the opportunity to build a track record as it seeks certifications elsewhere.

The company is also working towards FAA approvals.

This week, Chinese authorities including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the CAAC stressed the importance of eVTOLs in its plan to develop the country’s environmentally friendly aerospace sector by 2035.

New York-listed EHang said it has received pre-orders for 100 EH216-S aircraft at home and pre-orders for more than 1,200 such vehicles from overseas markets including Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. BLOOMBERG