AutoFlight and EHang among those selected for Hong Kong’s Inaugural ‘Regulatory Sandbox X’ Flight Trials

Aut­oFlight and EHang have been select­ed for the inau­gur­al round of Hong Kong’s “Reg­u­la­to­ry Sand­box X” – a flag­ship ini­tia­tive to advance the city’s low-alti­tude econ­o­my and explore inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tions.

Launched by the Trans­port and Logis­tics Bureau and sup­port­ed by Hong Kong’s Civ­il Avi­a­tion Depart­ment, ‘Reg­u­la­to­ry Sand­box X’ takes an open, for­ward-look­ing approach to com­pli­ant test flights, sce­nario val­i­da­tion, and iter­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy upgrades for inno­v­a­tive unmanned air­craft. The aim is to pave the way for low‑carbon, high‑efficiency air mobil­i­ty.

Aut­oFlight will work with part­ners includ­ing Chi­na Trav­el Ser­vice (Hong Kong) Auto­mo­bile Ser­vices Lim­it­ed and AECOM Lim­it­ed on route plan­ning, flight-para­me­ter cal­i­bra­tion and end-to-end flight val­i­da­tion. Togeth­er, these efforts will steadi­ly widen the scope of low-alti­tude com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions across the region.

While EHang has been select­ed, togeth­er with its part­ners Kwoon Chung Smart Mobil­i­ty Co.,Ltd and Hong Kong Cyber­port Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

All par­ties will lever­age their respec­tive resource advan­tages to steadi­ly advance com­pli­ant demon­stra­tion flights, sce­nario val­i­da­tion and a series of coor­di­nat­ed efforts, con­tribut­ing to the high‑quality growth of Hong Kong’s low‑altitude econ­o­my.

As the world’s first com­pa­ny to obtain the type cer­tifi­cate, pro­duc­tion cer­tifi­cate, and stan­dard air­wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cate for a pilot­less human-car­ry­ing eVTOL in Chi­na, EHang has remained com­mit­ted to advanc­ing prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions for the low-alti­tude econ­o­my.

As of May 2026, EHang’s flag­ship prod­uct, the EH216‑S pilot­less human-car­ry­ing eVTOL has com­plet­ed more than 90,000 safe flights and has been oper­at­ing rou­tine com­mer­cial tri­al ser­vices in Guangzhou and Hefei in Chi­na. These efforts are gen­er­at­ing replic­a­ble and scal­able prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence for the industry’s tran­si­tion to com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

Hong Kong is a key gate­way con­nect­ing with the Greater Bay Area and glob­al mar­kets, and an ide­al test­ing ground for low-alti­tude econ­o­my inno­va­tion and devel­op­ment. EHang will deep­en the col­lab­o­ra­tion with its Hong Kong part­ners to explore advanced air mobil­i­ty appli­ca­tions, sup­port Hong Kong’s low-alti­tude econ­o­my inno­va­tion, and con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of low-alti­tude econ­o­my ecosys­tem across the Greater Bay Area.

Xie Jia, senior vice pres­i­dent of Aut­oFlight, not­ed that Aut­oFlight will use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to deep­en its invest­ment in core eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy and com­mer­cial deploy­ment, sup­port­ing Hong Kong’s emerg­ing low-alti­tude trans­port net­work.

For more back­ground infor­ma­tion on the Hong Kong Low-Alti­tude Econ­o­my Reg­u­la­to­ry Sand­box X, please vis­it https://www.tlb.gov.hk/eng/highlights/transport/low-altitude.html.

Fea­tured image: In Feb­ru­ary 2024, AutoFlight’s 2 ton eVTOL com­plet­ed a land­mark cross-sea flight between Shen­zhen and Zhuhai.