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Chinese flying taxi maker Ehang gets approval to test drone deliveries for cargo weighing over 150kg
- Ehang is the world’s first autonomous aerial vehicle company approved to conduct commercial trials of passenger drones for transporting heavy cargo, it says
- The pilotless 216 flying car can hold two passengers and travel at up to 130km per hour
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Guangzhou-based Ehang, known for its ambitions to make flying taxis a reality, has obtained what it says is the world’s first commercial licence to test passenger-grade drones to transport heavy goods of more than 150kg.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has approved tests of Ehang’s 216 flying car for air logistics, making it the world’s first autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) company a national aviation authority has approved for commercial trials of drone deliveries involving loads of more than 150kg, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The battery-operated Ehang 216 was unveiled in April last year in Vienna, Austria as the company’s latest flying taxi model. The pilotless drone, which can hold two passengers, can cover a distance of about 30km at speeds of up to 130km per hour, according to the company.
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Flying taxi developed by Chinese and Austrian companies takes off in Vienna
Flying taxi developed by Chinese and Austrian companies takes off in Vienna
With the CAAC’s approval, the company will conduct tests using the passenger drone to transport cargo between ground level and the top of a hill and between the shore and islands at a customer site in Taizhou, a city in the eastern Zhejiang province in China. Ehang intends to gradually expand the trials to other sites in China as it accumulates operational data and experience, it added in the statement.
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Drones, usually small, autonomous robots that can be controlled either remotely or by following an internal flight path of their own, have become more mainstream and taken on more applications including in the area of logistics in recent years.
E-commerce giants such as Amazon and JD.com have been experimenting with drone deliveries for some time, but such robot deliveries have become particularly relevant during the coronavirus pandemic amid efforts to prevent the spread of the deadly virus through human-to-human contact.
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