EHang drone taxi to perform demonstration flights in Israel

Accord­ing to a report from China’s Xin­hua news agency, Israel’s Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty said on Mon­day that EHang Intel­li­gent Tech­nol­o­gy will show­case its autopi­lot air taxi in Israel.

The drone, called EHang 216S, can car­ry two pas­sen­gers and fly at a speed of 130 km per hour at a height of 500 meters. This is the first demon­stra­tion of its kind in Israel and will be man­aged by the CAA and the Israel Inno­va­tion Author­i­ty.

The demon­stra­tion is part of a CAA-led ini­tia­tive to pro­mote drone-relat­ed tech­nolo­gies in Israel, said the CAA, adding that two of the EHang drones had been trans­port­ed to Israel.

Can­do Drones, an Israeli avi­a­tion com­pa­ny par­tic­i­pat­ing in the test flights, said the drones are expect­ed to con­duct tri­al flights in June once the avi­a­tion per­mits are received.

The tests in Israel will be oper­at­ed by Can­do Drones and its sub­sidiary Dronery Fly, with sup­port from a team of EHang experts who will trav­el to Israel for this pur­pose.

Can­do Drones is an avi­a­tion com­pa­ny that estab­lish­es and man­ages autonomous drone sys­tems, pro­vid­ing cus­tomers a turnkey solu­tion that includes the orga­ni­za­tion of the aer­i­al space, reg­u­la­tion, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, choos­ing and inte­grat­ing sys­tems, ground logis­tics man­age­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, train­ing, pro­fes­sion­al and tech­ni­cal guid­ance.

In Novem­ber 2022, Israel’s Nation­al Drone Ini­tia­tive invest­ed ILS60 mil­lion with 10 com­pa­nies, includ­ing Can­do Drones, as part of a pilot project to exam­ine the use of large car­go drones and pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing fly­ing taxis in con­trolled air­space, reports israeldefense.co.il. The sum is equiv­a­lent to around UKP15 mil­lion.

Israel: Nation­al Drone Ini­tia­tive invests ILS60 mil­lion in 10 Com­pa­nies for Series of Major Tri­als