China: “AutoFlight Collaborate with Hefei City to Supply Fleet of eVTOL Aircraft”

Aut­oFlight and Hefei City recent­ly signed a project col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment to devel­op Hefei’s urban air traf­fic sys­tem and to sup­ply a fleet of AutoFlight’s eVTOL air­craft, reports a press release. This includes plans for the company’s new East Chi­na oper­a­tional hub in Feixi Coun­ty.

Hefei is to buy mul­ti­ple exam­ples of both the car­go and 5‑seat pas­sen­ger air­craft. These acqui­si­tions will enable the devel­op­ment of air logis­tics net­works, emer­gency response capa­bil­i­ties, aer­i­al sight-see­ing and advanced air mobil­i­ty ser­vices both inside the city and inter-city, sup­port­ing Hefei’s strate­gic goals for its low-alti­tude econ­o­my (LAE).

The release states, “The part­ner­ship also includes Aut­oFlight estab­lish­ing its East Chi­na region­al head­quar­ter in Hefei’s Feixi Coun­ty. This new facil­i­ty will house final assem­bly oper­a­tions, test­ing facil­i­ties, sales offices and train­ing cen­tres.”

Hefei has estab­lished itself as a lead­ing low-alti­tude pilot city through sup­port­ive poli­cies and inno­v­a­tive air traf­fic man­age­ment expe­ri­ences. The city’s approach to devel­op­ing its LAE capa­bil­i­ties has become a mod­el for urban cen­tres across Chi­na.

AutoFlight’s inde­pen­dent­ly devel­oped car­go Car­ryAll has secured, to date, both TC Type Cer­tifi­cate and PC Pro­duc­tion Cer­tifi­cate glob­al­ly. The Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process for the 5‑seat pas­sen­ger ver­sion, Pros­per­i­ty, is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2026. Aut­oFlight is backed by CATL (a lead­ing Chi­nese bat­tery devel­op­er) and major finan­cial invest­ment.

Mean­while, the com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing a new man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Wuhan’s Hanyang Dis­trict, estab­lish­ing its first pres­ence in Cen­tral Chi­na. 

A coop­er­a­tive frame­work is being cre­at­ed for a demon­stra­tion zone for Chi­na’s LAE, to sup­port a greater advance­ment in this emerg­ing eco­nom­ic sec­tor. The Wuhan facil­i­ty will serve as both an assem­bly base and exhi­bi­tion cen­tre, han­dling air­craft final assem­bly, ground test­ing, flight test­ing, sales and ser­vice, deliv­ery and prod­uct show­cas­es.

Aut­oFlight is to active­ly par­tic­i­pate in devel­op­ing Wuhan’s LAE and col­lab­o­rate on ini­tial demon­stra­tions of spe­cialised oper­a­tions and future pas­sen­ger ser­vices in the city.

Through this part­ner­ship, Aut­oFlight “aims to accel­er­ate pro­duc­tion scale-up and com­mer­cial deploy­ment of its large eVTOL air­craft,” explains the release. “The col­lab­o­ra­tion will facil­i­tate demon­stra­tion projects show­cas­ing inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tions in aer­i­al fire­fight­ing, emer­gency response oper­a­tions, air logis­tics, and oth­er rel­e­vant fields.”

At the recent open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Wang Xunan, Pres­i­dent of the Chi­na Unit­ed Nations Pro­cure­ment Pro­mo­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, announced that Hanyang Invest­ment Devel­op­ment Group (HIDG) has offi­cial­ly been des­ig­nat­ed as the first reg­is­tered sup­pli­er of eVTOL air­craft for Unit­ed Nations pro­cure­ment. HIDG will also sup­port Aut­oFlight’s inter­na­tion­al mar­ket expan­sion through the “Belt and Road” cross-bor­der sup­ply chain. 

The release con­tin­ues, “This col­lab­o­ra­tion will facil­i­tate the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the company’s  eVTOLs to Cen­tral Asian mar­kets and oth­er regions, while estab­lish­ing cross-bor­der oper­a­tional part­ner­ships between Chi­na and Euro­pean coun­tries.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.autoflight.com/en

https://www.catl.com/en

(Images: Pros­per­i­ty eVTOL in Yel­low and red Hanyang liv­ery. Cred­it — Hanyang Dis­trict Gov­ern­ment)

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