“China Could Have Up to 100,000 Electric Air Taxis and Personal Flying Vehicles Over its Cities by 2030”

This rather stag­ger­ing head­line first appeared in Chinadaily.com.cn one week ago on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 27th. Giv­en the grav­i­ty of the claim, it was sur­pris­ing­ly a short arti­cle, just six para­graphs long.

It begins, “Chi­na could poten­tial­ly see 100,000 elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing air­craft (eVTOLs) serve as fam­i­ly vehi­cles or air taxis by 2030, accord­ing to a report from the Chi­na Low Alti­tude Eco­nom­ic Alliance.”

And goes on, “The alliance antic­i­pates that with­in the next two to three years, Chi­na’s major cities will com­plete air trans­porta­tion net­works and sup­port­ing ground ser­vice facil­i­ties for low-alti­tude vehi­cles.”

The report also high­lights the expand­ing role of drones in logis­tics, agri­cul­ture, emer­gency res­cue, urban man­age­ment and tourism, say­ing they will be “ubiq­ui­tous.”

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202411/27/WS6746fbaea310f1265a1cfee6.html

The media trail always sur­pris­es. It wasn’t the spe­cial­ist eVTOL or drone out­lets that fol­lowed up on this sto­ry, but the UK’s low­brow tabloid, The Sun.

Writ­ten by Juliana Cruz Lima, the media outlet’s for­eign news reporter, the head­line was the expect­ed PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF. The arti­cle leads, “Chi­na is rac­ing to trans­form its cities with 100,000 fly­ing cars hov­er­ing through the skies in just six years, a new report has said. Futur­is­tic vehi­cles are set to rev­o­lu­tionise urban trans­porta­tion — serv­ing as fam­i­ly cars air taxis and even deliv­ery vans.”

(Cred­it: The Sun)

Amidst an ini­tial pletho­ra of adver­tis­ing and oth­er sto­ry links, which the arti­cle lucra­tive­ly winds itself around, The Sun along­side sci­ence-fic­tion style images, explains, “The report by the Chi­na Low Alti­tude Eco­nom­ic Alliance reveals that air traf­fic net­works and ground facil­i­ties for fly­ing vehi­cles will be large­ly com­plet­ed in the next two to three years. This infra­struc­ture will enable the mass pro­duc­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of Elec­tric Ver­ti­cal Take­off and Land­ing Vehi­cles — or eVTOLs — by 2026.” Adding, “While cur­rent eVTOLs cost a hefty 10 mil­lion RMB (£1 mil­lion), prices are expect­ed to drop sig­nif­i­cant­ly by 2030.”

The Sun then inter­views Eve Air Mobil­i­ty CEO, Johann Bor­dais, who is quot­ed, “We have the biggest pre-order book in the indus­try, with a total of 2,900 vehi­cles pre-sold, but the road­block will be ecosys­tem readi­ness, not tech­nol­o­gy.”

Also, there are men­tions of EHang and Xpeng Aero­ht as well as a Ver­ti­cal Aero­space video. At the bot­tom of this fea­ture, the media out­let offers its read­ers a col­umn enti­tled “What are eVTOLs?”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/31983552/china-plans-flying-cars-taxis

It took anoth­er four days before a few spe­cial­ist web­sites cov­ered the sto­ry includ­ing urbanairmobilitynews.com. While on Decem­ber 3rd, the esteemed Robb Report took the Chi­na Dai­ly ini­tial sto­ry and trans­formed it into a fea­ture, focus­ing on Chi­na-based eVTOL com­pa­nies. 

It ques­tions: “Whether Chi­na can meet the aggres­sive goals of 100,000 fly­ing elec­tric vehi­cles by 2030 remains to be seen. But it is the first nation­al gov­ern­ment to tar­get eVTOLs as a growth indus­try, which could even­tu­al­ly mean state invest­ments across mul­ti­ple areas, as well as expe­dit­ed reg­u­la­tions that would fast-track their use.”

https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/chinas-evtol-makers-flying-cars-1236109502

Xpeng X2 eVTOL flies over City of Guangzhou (Cred­it: Xpeng Aero­ht)

So, who exact­ly are the Low Alti­tude Eco­nom­ic Alliance?  Estab­lished in August and ini­ti­at­ed by over 100 enter­pris­es, the Alliance focus­es on advanc­ing low-alti­tude air­space appli­ca­tions and plan­ning the future of the indus­try.

It admits in the Robb Report that China’s eVTOL indus­try mov­ing for­ward “has no mature busi­ness mod­el to learn from abroad.” A trail-blaz­er it must be then, mis­takes and all, with aims “to cre­ate detailed guide­lines for cities to devel­op com­mer­cial strate­gies for imple­men­ta­tion.”

The overview of the orig­i­nal news sto­ry is some­what chill­ing. Chi­na is not just ahead of the glob­al eVTOL indus­try, but by a coun­try mile. Are we talk­ing of five years ahead of the West, per­haps, even ten? The coun­try is even cre­at­ing new indus­try lin­go like: “The Low Alti­tude Econ­o­my.”

Aside from Chi­na, many believe the Mid­dle East will lead the way as Archer, Joby, EHang, Aut­oFlight and oth­ers PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF from 2026. Mean­while, Europe offers scant inter­est in the eVTOL indus­try, recent­ly ditch­ing Lil­i­um with both Volo­copter and Ver­ti­cal Aero­space look­ing decid­ed­ly vul­ner­a­ble for the long-haul. While the infra­struc­ture is so much in its infan­cy, sin­gle ver­ti­ports, occa­sion­al­ly dot­ted around Amer­i­ca by 2030, for exam­ple, is the best, per­haps, that can be hoped for.

It seems Chi­na is hold­ing all the cards and will be ful­ly autonomous, while the West begins plonk­ing pilots into its air­craft. Then, two real­i­ties may occur. Chi­na with 100,000 elec­tric air taxis and per­son­al fly­ing vehi­cles whizzing over its cities by 2030, whilst the West may be lucky to have 100 or for that mat­ter none, if the infra­struc­ture is not con­struct­ed.

Time to get a jol­ly good move on.

(Top image: Cred­it — www.teachflight.com)

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