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AirX places pre-order for 50 of EHang’s 216 eVTOL aircraft to support various UAM projects in Japan

EHang has announced a pre-order of 50 units of its EH216 autonomous aer­i­al vehi­cle (AAV) from AirX, which is the biggest order the com­pa­ny has received in Japan.

Regard­ed as the lead­ing heli­copter ser­vice plat­form provider in the coun­try, AirX has devel­oped and oper­at­ed reser­va­tion plat­forms for more than 100 heli­copter sight­see­ing oper­at­ing routes and pri­vate heli­copter char­ters.

Every year, the AirX plat­form can book over 2,000 heli­copter sight­see­ing flights through­out Japan and more than 200 char­tered flights. Since its estab­lish­ment, AirX has served over 15,000 char­tered flight cus­tomers.

Tezu­ka Kiwa­mu, Founder and CEO of AirX, said: “The low-alti­tude trans­porta­tion and tourism mar­ket has great poten­tial and broad prospects. By lever­ag­ing the advan­tages of autonomous flight tech­nolo­gies and cen­tralised man­age­ment, the EH216 AAVs can pro­vide cus­tomers with cost-effec­tive aer­i­al sight­see­ing ser­vices, which is why AirX selects EHang as a part­ner in the glob­al eVTOL mar­ket. We look for­ward to offer­ing con­sumers safer and more con­ve­nient trav­el options with the EH216 in the future.”

The pre-order of AAVs are planned to facil­i­tate var­i­ous urban air mobil­i­ty projects in Japan and may pro­vide ‘air taxi’ ser­vices at the 2025 World Expo in Osa­ka.

Huazhi Hu, Founder, Chair­man and CEO of EHang, added: “Our part­ner­ship with AirX marks a key mile­stone for us to fur­ther explore and devel­op the UAM mar­ket in Japan. We are very delight­ed to see an increas­ing num­ber of air trans­porta­tion part­ners are intro­duc­ing EHang’s safe, autonomous and sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty solu­tions to the gen­er­al pub­lic.”

The pre-order of 50 216 AAVs fol­lows on from EHang also receiv­ing the first order for its long-range, pas­sen­ger-grade VT30 eVTOL air­craft in Japan. The VT-30 made its pub­lic debut dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny before the Zhuhai Air­show in Novem­ber 2021, after being launched ear­li­er that year.

It is the first mod­el in EHang’s air­craft port­fo­lio designed for inter-city trans­porta­tion and com­ple­ments EHang’s flag­ship 216 mod­el, which only has a range of 35km and is tar­get­ed for intra-city air mobil­i­ty. The VT-30 can fly for 100 min­utes and can trans­port two pas­sen­gers a dis­tance of 300km.

At the start of 2022, EHang launched its 5G Intel­li­gent Air Mobil­i­ty Expe­ri­ence Cen­tre in Guangzhou with Guangzhou Devel­op­ment Dis­trict Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Invest­ment Group Co (GDDCI). It has been designed and devel­oped as a new oper­a­tion spot with all nec­es­sary infra­struc­tures for its AAVs under the 100 Air Mobil­i­ty Routes Ini­tia­tive.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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