China gave EHang Holdings the go-ahead to start trial air-taxi operations in the year 2023, a prominent move for the company’s aim to bring the globe’s first commercial service using the futuristic battery-powered craft. EHang said its autonomous, two-passenger EH216-S saved the nation’s first type certificate signifying airworthiness from regulators. That will permit the company, which is based in Guangzhou, Guangdong, to collaborate with local partners and conduct aerial tours of scenic locations such as Tianchi Lake in Xinjiang province and OH Bay in Shenzhen, it conveyed.
The EH216-S, priced at 2.16 million yuan (S$405,000), has eight arms jutting out from its centre and is occupied with 16 propellers, each with its own electric motor. It can travel at around 100kmh for 25 minutes, according to EHang, which denied to say how much a flying-taxi tour might cost. Friday’s move by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) gives EHang a capable edge over a crowded field of enemies in the United States and Europe hurrying to meet serious certification guidelines.
Air taxis in growth utilise several new technologies – which includes batteries to power the craft and innovative types of materials – that make them more complicated 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 gone through periodic setbacks that underscore the security challenges which is involved in designing, manufacturing and enforcing air taxis.
Britain’s Vertical Aerospace threw allegations on a bonding problem for a high-profile crash in August. Others targeting certification in the near-term involve Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation in the US, and Germany’s Volocopter, which has the goal to operate a service whilst the 2024 Paris Olympics.