New Autonomous Air Taxi Trial in Thailand

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Electrical air taxis are usually not going to take over transportation. In my humble opinion, our skies are usually not going to be filled with small plane that seem like big bugs. We received’t have swarms of plane risking collision and devastating crashes into buildings. Nonetheless, I do consider that electrical air taxis will serve some functions and be extra widespread than gas-powered helicopters. The query many have is who will win on this new trade? Possibly EHang?

EHang is an organization we’ve coated many occasions over the previous 9 years. About one yr in the past, its EH216-S plane grew to become the primary autonomous electrical plane on the earth to be authorized for business flight. Now, in the end, it has performed its first pilot-free take a look at flights, in Bangkok, Thailand. The corporate has extra take a look at flights deliberate for the islands of Phuket and Koh Samui in 2025.

“This demo flight marks important progress in integrating city air mobility (UAM) options into Thailand’s aviation trade,” mentioned Suttipong Kongpool, Director, CAAT. “EHang’s EH216-S is at the moment the world’s solely eVTOL with airworthiness certificates, and we stay up for its business flight operations in sure areas of Thailand subsequent yr, which is able to function a major contribution to Thailand’s UAM roadmap growth plan.”

Thailand is clearly attempting to guide with its creation of a next-gen low-altitude airspace and air mobility market. It’s not the primary nation that might have come to thoughts for me, however apparently somebody within the nation is happy about autonomous electrical air taxis.

“The debut passenger flight of our EH216-S pilotless eVTOL in Thailand is a key milestone in EHang’s ongoing worldwide growth and that could be a robust enhance in selling the transformation of world superior city air mobility,” mentioned Conor Yang, CFO of EHang. “We intention to use our pilotless eVTOL merchandise and options within the Southeast Asian market. Sooner or later, with the robust help of the CAAT, we are going to cooperate with our native companions to formulate a mannequin for normal UAM operations in Thailand, contributing to the event of the city air mobility market in Southeast Asia and worldwide.”

Apparently, EHang simply had a few different massive bulletins previously week. For one, it introduced $22 million in new investments, from Enpower, “a strategic institutional investor from the Center East,” and Zhuhai Enpower Electrical, “a Chinese language main new vitality automobile energy programs supplier.” Secondly, EHang introduced a “breakthrough” in solid-state battery tech in partnership with the Low-Altitude Economic system Battery Analysis Institute of the Hefei Worldwide Superior Expertise Utility Promotion Heart and the corporate Shenzhen Inx Vitality Expertise. You possibly can learn extra about each items of reports right here.

Is EHang going to change into the primary firm making a living on electrical air taxis? Moreover, is it going to be a distinct segment market or is it going to change into a $1 trillion market as Morgan Stanley expects? Is Thailand going to be the primary nation with business autonomous electrical air taxi flights? Bookmark this web page and we’ll see when we have to return to it. Unquestionably, we’ll be masking Ehang once more — in all probability prior to later.