EHang this month expanded efforts to demonstrate the viability of multi-role operations with its autonomous EH215-S eVTOL aircraft by conducting demonstration sightseeing flights in China’s main business city, Shanghai. Nine months after the manufacturer received its production certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), it is delivering aircraft to Chinese customers as it waits for the regulator to issue the operational certificates needed for commercial flights.

Beginning in Shanghai on January 16, the demonstration flights were conducted with local partner Hynfar Aviation and based at the former Longhua Airfield on the banks of the Huangpu River. The companies are seeking to establish a case for flights that provide connections with the city’s main international airports, Hongqiao and Pudong, and five urban landing sites across China’s largest metropolitan area.

As with EHang’s other flight demonstration programs, conducted in cities including Hefei, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Zhuhai, and Wencheng, the exercise in Shanghai is intended to contribute to the implementation of government-backed plans to develop the so-called low-altitude economy. At a national level, China’s central government has prioritized the introduction of eVTOL services including passenger transportation, sightseeing, and emergency support, with city governments mirroring these objectives in their own local “action plans.”

Shanghai’s Historic Airfield Reborn as Vertiport

Having opened in the 1920s, Longhua served as Shanghai’s main airport until the 1950s when Hongqiao opened and closed in 1966. Following extensive commercial real estate development, the site is now being proposed as a vertiport hub for eVTOL operations. It also serves as the headquarters for CAAC’s East China General Aviation Service Center.

Working with Hynfar Aviation and New Margin Eastwood Fund, EHang intends to develop Longhua as a low-altitude economy hub. In the longer term, the partners want to expand eVTOL air services across the wider Yangtze River Delta region, covering eight other cities in addition to Shanghai.

According to the government’s “Action Plan for High Quality Development of Shanghai Low-Altitude Economy Industry,” the local advanced air mobility sector could be worth around 50 billion yuan ($6.8 billion) annually by 2027. The plan has set the goal of establishing 100 “low-altitude flight service applications” by then.

“As the world’s first pilotless, passenger-carrying eVTOL [aircraft] that has obtained a type certificate, production certificate, and standard airworthiness certificate from the CAAC, the EJ216-S’s successful debut flight in Shanghai has great demonstration importance, signifying that large central cities in China are on the verge of entering the era of urban air taxi scenarios,” said EHang’s chief operating officer, Zhao Wang.

This week, EHang opened an urban air mobility "experience center" to give members of the public a clearer idea of what it will be like to travel in eVTOL aircraft. The exhibition is being staged at the Luohu Sports and Leisure Park in Shenzhen and the 8,100-sq-ft site features a fully-functioning automated vertiport for EHang's planned commercial operations in the city.

During an opening ceremony on January 21, an EH216-S aircraft was moved from the first to the second floor of the facility on a vertical lift platform. On the first floor their is a hangar and boarding area, situated below eVTOL takeoff and landing pads on the second and third floors. According to the company, Shenzhen has 15 vertiports in place for operations.