EHang’s VT-30 Stands Resplendent at BEYOND Expo 2023

evtolinsights.com favourite EHang news source, eastwestconn.com, has come up trumps again with splen­did images of EHang’s VT-30 tak­en at last week’s BEYOND Expo 2023.

While the trio of 216 AAVs attract all the pub­lic­i­ty and “Wows” from the many tens of thou­sands of enthu­si­as­tic glob­al Expo and Con­ven­tion crowds, these lat­est images of the VT-30, real­ly shows off its prowess, where the air­craft strong­ly com­petes visu­al­ly against the 216‑S.

An arti­cle pub­lished last week on evtolinsights.com dis­cuss­es the ‘2023 Beyond Inter­na­tion­al Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion Expo’ held at the Venet­ian Macao Con­ven­tion and Exhi­bi­tion Cen­tre between May 10th and 12th. What makes this par­tic­u­lar major Expo dif­fer­ent is that it’s the first one this year where EHang has dis­played the VT-30.

EHang Glo­be­trots Around World Exhibit­ing AAVs at Series of Recent Fairs and Expos

The VT-30 has a longer bat­tery range and there­fore can fly fur­ther on one elec­tric charge than a 216‑S. There are eight pro­pellers and a pair of fixed wings on both sides, along­side a pro­peller at the rear, offer­ing a mixed bal­ance of lift and thrust in terms of con­fig­u­ra­tion. The VT-30 can fly up to 300 kilo­me­tres, with an endurance of 100 min­utes. Its cruise speed is unknown. Com­pare this to the 216‑S 30 kilo­me­tres and 25 min­utes. Both car­ry up to 2 pas­sen­gers only and both are autonomous.

Mean­while, EHang con­tin­ues to embrace the world’s exhi­bi­tion stage with yet anoth­er appear­ance, this time at the 2023 Chi­na Brand Day and Expo held at the Shang­hai World Expo Exhi­bi­tion Hall. That means the com­pa­ny was exhibit­ing at least one of its craft at three dif­fer­ent major shows around the world at the same time.

The Resplen­dent VT-30 on Dis­play

Not only does EHang “exhaus­tive­ly do the miles”, but all its hard work is pay­ing div­i­dends. While the crafts’ reg­u­lar appear­ance help bring the future Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty indus­try to the glob­al stage and the public’s atten­tion, this also cre­ates many oppor­tu­ni­ties for new finan­cial con­tracts and busi­ness part­ner­ships. Once EHang gains its crit­i­cal full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the CAAC, the com­pa­ny is like a tight­ly coiled spring and may expe­ri­ence a sud­den quan­tum leap jump in air­craft sales.

At the Chi­na Brand Day Event, He Tianx­ing, the Vice Pres­i­dent of EHang, gave a talk where he stat­ed, “For new busi­ness­es, only by cre­at­ing your own brands with core intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights can you gain a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage.” Present­ly, EHang has that in abun­dance.

Talk­ing of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, what is this worth to EHang?

globalsky.com post­ed a fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle last week, an inter­view with EHang’s Direc­tor, Nick Ning Yang. He stat­ed the cost of pur­chas­ing an EH216 is USD302,000. Some may think this is expen­sive, but Yang went on to say, “It’s about the price of a Porsche and half the cost of a Fer­rari.”

When delv­ing into the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion progress, Yang acknowl­edged EHang is “90 per­cent” of the way to obtain­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the EH216 from the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC) in 2023. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this is a moot point for the com­pa­ny. It has been stuck at “90 per­cent” for over a year now, and no-one ful­ly under­stands what the actu­al stick­ing point is. Crit­ics refer to the posi­tion­ing of the rotors as being a pos­si­ble stum­bling point. If so, then EHang is in trou­ble. Do they recon­fig­ure its 216 at such a late stage of devel­op­ment and what would that cost?

Nick Yang

Even so, Yang side­stepped any per­ceived cer­ti­fi­ca­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, by explain­ing the company’s aim is to estab­lish routes in many dif­fer­ent tourist des­ti­na­tions with­in two to three years time. After that, flights between cities such as Hong Kong and Macau will be the next course of action. 

Yang added secur­ing CAAC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is just the start­ing point as EHang will look to cer­tifi­cate its air­craft in for­eign mar­kets such as South­east Asia and the Mid­dle East. The com­pa­ny claims it has over 1,200 pre-orders glob­al­ly for the 216 and VT-30. EHang also has more than 100 orders alone for the EH216‑S in Chi­na. 

While resort oper­a­tors will be the pri­ma­ry users of the air­craft at the start, Yang wants to tar­get cus­tomers in sub­ur­ban areas. He explained that the eVTOLs will be based at heli­ports oper­at­ed by EHang part­ners. Own­ers want­i­ng to fly will need to call ahead of time, so that the ver­ti­port team can pre­pare their EH216 for flight. 

He remarked, “Cus­tomers are all over the place and each one looks to take at least one or two. Although, not a big batch, oth­ers often want to order at least ten. There is a lot of appetite.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ehang.com/ehangaav/

(Images: EHang)