Part 2: “EHang News Round-Up”

EHang was very busy dur­ing the West’s Christ­mas and New Year fes­tiv­i­ties, so this is Part 2 of the eVTOL company’s recent news round-up. Chi­na is rapid­ly devel­op­ing its elec­tric air taxi indus­try under the country’s self-titled The Low Alti­tude Econ­o­my (LAE). It will be inter­est­ing to see if the West bor­rows this term in the years ahead.

EHang has signed a co-oper­a­tion agree­ment with Wei­hai High-Tech Zone in Shan­dong Province to co-devel­op this autonomous indus­tri­al ecosys­tem. The two par­ties aim to estab­lish a R&D and man­u­fac­tur­ing base in Shan­dong, to serve its High-Tech Zone while joint­ly devel­op­ing a LAE indus­tri­al park in the area, to inte­grate with cul­tur­al tourism and oth­er region­al indus­tries, to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and clus­ter­ing of this indus­try.

Based on this coop­er­a­tion, Wei­hai High-Tech Zone Cul­tur­al and Tourism Indus­try Invest­ment Co have signed a pur­chase agree­ment for the first batch of 30 units of EH216‑S autonomous pas­sen­ger eVTOLs, already com­plet­ing full pay­ment for the order.

Under the Agree­ment, both par­ties plan to launch “a com­pre­hen­sive low-alti­tude cul­tur­al tourism flight routes with scenic spots, high-end hotels, com­mer­cial dis­tricts, leisure parks and camp­ing busi­ness­es, form­ing sce­nar­ios for pas­sen­ger sight­see­ing and low-alti­tude trans­porta­tion, while explor­ing and dri­ving the devel­op­ment of low-alti­tude tourism,” explains the release. “Key tourist sites include Wei­hai Inter­na­tion­al Beach, Xiaoshi Island, and Torch Eight Streets.” 

EHang will assist its part­ner with per­son­nel train­ing, infra­struc­ture, routes plan­ning, tri­al flights and prepa­ra­tions for apply­ing for the Air Oper­a­tor Cer­tifi­cate. Wei­hai High-Tech Zone is to coor­di­nate gov­ern­ment resources to facil­i­tate favourable poli­cies, appli­ca­tion sce­nar­ios, man­u­fac­tur­ing base and infra­struc­ture facil­i­ties.

The project coop­er­a­tion agree­ment sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny between EHang and the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee of the Wei­hai High-Tech Zone

A Wei­hai Hi-Tech Zone spokesper­son com­ment­ed, “With the con­struc­tion of EHang’s air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing base under­way, we will ensure effi­cient sup­port to achieve expe­dit­ed com­ple­tion, pro­duc­tion, and results. As the future indus­tries like the low-alti­tude econ­o­my con­tin­ue to con­sol­i­date and strength­en in the Zone, the region­al econ­o­my will achieve sus­tained growth.”

Zhao Wang, COO of EHang, remarked, “With the diverse appli­ca­tion sce­nar­ios in Wei­hai, we are well-posi­tioned to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial oper­a­tions and mar­ket adop­tion, joint­ly advanc­ing safe, intel­li­gent and eco-friend­ly air mobil­i­ty solu­tions.”

He added, “In the future, the pub­lic will be able to pur­chase tick­ets for pilot­less eVTOL sight­see­ing, enjoy­ing more afford­able prices and a bet­ter flight expe­ri­ence than heli­copter tours.”

Anoth­er EHang part­ner­ship agree­ment in recent weeks has been with Chongqing Changan Auto­mo­bile Co, a lead­ing Chi­nese car man­u­fac­tur­er list­ed on the Shen­zhen Stock Exchange. This is an impres­sive deal for the eVTOL com­pa­ny.

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the strate­gic coop­er­a­tion agree­ment between EHang and Changan Auto­mo­bile

The par­ties are to col­lab­o­rate on the R&D, man­u­fac­tur­ing, sales and oper­a­tion for eVTOL air­craft and inno­v­a­tive fly­ing cars. The two com­pa­nies will explore the estab­lish­ment of a joint ven­ture focused on future mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem tech­nolo­gies.

As one of Chi­na’s top four auto­mo­tive groups, Changan Auto­mo­bile holds strong capa­bil­i­ties in R&D, man­u­fac­tur­ing infra­struc­ture, sup­ply chain, sales chan­nel resources and sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket influ­ence in auto­mo­bile mar­ket. 

Huarong Zhu, Chair­man of Changan Auto­mo­bile, com­ment­ed, “Our coop­er­a­tion is of great sig­nif­i­cance, allow­ing both par­ties to lever­age their respec­tive strengths. Over the next five years, Changan Auto­mo­bile plans to invest more than 20 bil­lion yuan in the low-alti­tude econ­o­my sec­tor to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of the fly­ing car indus­try. Over the next decade, we will invest more than 100 bil­lion yuan to explore inte­grat­ed mobil­i­ty solu­tions across land, sea and air.”

Zhao Wang, COO of EHang and Xiaoyu Zhang, Exec­u­tive VP of Changan Auto­mo­bile

Huazhi Hu, Founder, Chair­man, and CEO of EHang, remarked, “We look for­ward to more cross-indus­try coop­er­a­tion with mature domes­tic automak­ers, lever­ag­ing each oth­er’s strengths and resources to cre­ate com­ple­men­tary and syn­er­gis­tic effects, con­tin­u­ous­ly enrich­ing and devel­op­ing eVTOL prod­uct series that cater to diverse sce­nario demands and cus­tomers.”

Back­ground

Changan Auto­mo­bile is one of the four major Chi­nese car groups, with 40 years of man­u­fac­tur­ing expe­ri­ence. The com­pa­ny has 14 man­u­fac­tur­ing bases and 34 plants world­wide and has self-owned brands includ­ing CHANGAN UNI, CHANGAN NEVO, CHANGAN LCV, DEEPAL, AVATR, and joint ven­ture brands includ­ing CHANGAN Ford, CHANGAN Maz­da and JMC. 

Changan Auto­mo­bile has more than 18,000 engi­neers and tech­ni­cians from 31 coun­tries around the world, and has estab­lished R&D net­work of ten cities in six coun­tries in Chongqing, Bei­jing, Shang­hai, Dingzhou in Hebei, Hefei in Anhui, Turin in Italy, Yoko­hama in Japan, Birm­ing­ham in the UK, Detroit in the U.S and Munich in Ger­many. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ehang.com

https://www.globalchangan.com

(Top image: EHang New Year Wish­es)

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