EHang Expands Global Fast Track Program to Vietnam

EHang has expand­ed its Glob­al Fast Track Pro­gram to Viet­nam, where it will work with Hanoi author­i­ties and local part­ner HungVi­et Tech­nol­o­gy and Invest­ment Trad­ing JSC to estab­lish a reg­u­la­to­ry sand­box for pilot­less elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft.

Under a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing signed by HungVi­et and Hanoi’s Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (Hanoi DOST), the par­ties will con­duct low-alti­tude econ­o­my sand­box test­ing cen­tred on EHang’s EH216‑S pilot­less pas­sen­ger air­craft. Viet­nam is the sec­ond coun­try to join EHang’s Glob­al Fast Track Pro­gram, fol­low­ing Sri Lan­ka.

Hanoi DOST will pro­vide guid­ance on the sand­box appli­ca­tion and approval process, while HungVi­et will pro­vide tech­ni­cal, finan­cial and per­son­nel resources for the pro­gramme. EHang will sup­ply the EH216‑S air­craft, asso­ci­at­ed oper­a­tional tech­nol­o­gy and train­ing sup­port.

Test­ing is planned at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park, sub­ject to the com­ple­tion of the rel­e­vant approval pro­ce­dures. The pro­gramme will begin with con­trolled EH216‑S test flights and is also expect­ed to explore an unmanned air­craft traf­fic man­age­ment (UTM) mod­el and an oper­a­tions con­trol cen­tre (OCC) mod­el.

The part­ners also plan to work on oper­a­tional tech­nol­o­gy train­ing, tech­ni­cal stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions, and tech­ni­cal exchanges. The objec­tive is to gath­er oper­a­tional and reg­u­la­to­ry data that can sup­port future pilot­less eVTOL oper­a­tions in Viet­nam.

The coop­er­a­tion is expect­ed to extend beyond pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions. EHang said the par­ties will con­duct phased tech­ni­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion of both human-car­ry­ing and car­go-car­ry­ing vari­ants of the EH216 series, tak­ing into account Vietnam’s reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments, oper­at­ing envi­ron­ments and poten­tial com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions.

Fol­low­ing the Hanoi pro­gramme, EHang plans to explore oper­a­tions in oth­er Viet­namese cities, includ­ing Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. Poten­tial appli­ca­tions iden­ti­fied by the com­pa­ny include urban mobil­i­ty and tourism-relat­ed ser­vices.

The Hanoi agree­ment forms part of EHang’s wider Glob­al Fast Track Pro­gram, which is intend­ed to work with local gov­ern­ments and avi­a­tion author­i­ties to devel­op reg­u­la­to­ry and oper­a­tional path­ways for its pilot­less eVTOL air­craft.

The com­pa­ny said dis­cus­sions have also tak­en place with avi­a­tion author­i­ties and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­er­al Asia-Pacif­ic coun­tries regard­ing reg­u­la­to­ry sand­box­es and poten­tial par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gramme.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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