EHang becomes world’s first AAV company to receive commercial approval for air logistics purposes

EHang has obtained the world’s first com­mer­cial pilot oper­a­tion approval from the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC), to use its pas­sen­ger-grade 216 AAVs for air logis­tics pur­pos­es.

In an announce­ment made today (Wednes­day), the com­pa­ny is also the world’s first AAV devel­op­er approved by a nation­al avi­a­tion author­i­ty to car­ry out com­mer­cial pilot oper­a­tion for the cat­e­go­ry of 150 kg plus heavy-lift air logis­tics uses.

With this approval, a tri­al using the EHang 216 will be car­ried out to trans­port car­go between ground and hill­top and between shore and islands at a cus­tomer site in Taizhou.  It is also intend­ed to be grad­u­al­ly expand­ed to oth­er sites in Chi­na as it accu­mu­lates oper­a­tional data and expe­ri­ence.

EHang Founder, Chair­man and CEO Hu Huazhi said: “We are thrilled that the CAAC and EHang took the lead on the world’s first com­mer­cial pilot oper­a­tion approval of pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs for air logis­tics uses. This approval is of great sig­nif­i­cance.

“For EHang, it enables us to enhance our first-mover advan­tage and accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of AAV tech­nol­o­gy and air mobil­i­ty solu­tions for logis­tics. It also lays a foun­da­tion for reg­u­la­tors around the world to joint­ly explore and estab­lish a coor­di­nat­ed, sup­port­ive and sus­tain­able reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment. This will ben­e­fit the long-term devel­op­ment of the promis­ing Urban Air Mobil­i­ty appli­ca­tions.”

Approval was grant­ed based on the Pilot Oper­a­tion Rules (Inter­im) for Spe­cif­ic Unmanned Air­craft pro­mul­gat­ed by the CAAC in Feb­ru­ary 2019 for dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of spe­cif­ic unmanned air­craft includ­ing pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs.

It is a pio­neer­ing reg­u­la­tion for which the CAAC applied the Spe­cif­ic Oper­a­tion Risk Assess­ment (“SORA”) frame­work of the Joint Author­i­ties for Rule­mak­ing of Unmanned Sys­tems (“JARUS”), a group of experts from the nation­al avi­a­tion author­i­ties of 61 coun­tries, includ­ing Chi­na and the U.S., and the Euro­pean Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (“EASA”) and EUROCONTROL.

As the first com­pa­ny approved for the pas­sen­ger-grade AAV air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pilot pro­gram by the CAAC and as a mem­ber of the CAAC Spe­cial Expert Task­force, the accu­mu­lat­ed flight tri­als and tests con­duct­ed by EHang con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence to the CAAC to fur­ther devel­op and evolve reg­u­la­tions and stan­dards relat­ed to pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs.

CAAC Deputy Admin­is­tra­tor Li Jian said: “I am pleased to see the fast devel­op­ment that EHang has achieved in Chi­na and glob­al­ly, and that the flight test pro­gram of its pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs were suc­cess­ful­ly ver­i­fied by the CAAC to be grant­ed with this approval.  It can be a safe and effi­cient solu­tion to trans­port car­go.”

CAAC Chief Engi­neer Yin Shi­jun added: “We encour­age the devel­op­ment of the unmanned air­craft indus­try while ensur­ing safe­ty.  EHang 216 is a pas­sen­ger-grade AAV quite dif­fer­ent from oth­er unmanned air­craft.  We will pro­vide our strong sup­port and help accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of this inno­v­a­tive air mobil­i­ty solu­tion.”

Air logis­tics is an essen­tial urban air mobil­i­ty appli­ca­tion with huge mar­ket poten­tial. Accord­ing to Mor­gan Stan­ley, the glob­al mar­ket size could reach US$1.5 tril­lion by 2040.  Air logis­tics is expect­ed to one of the ini­tial appli­ca­tions for com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.