New Autonomous Air Taxi Trial in Thailand – CleanTechnica

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Electric air taxis are not going to take over transportation. In my humble opinion, our skies are not going to be full of small aircraft that look like giant bugs. We won’t have swarms of aircraft risking collision and devastating crashes into buildings. However, I do believe that electric air taxis will serve some purposes and be more common than gas-powered helicopters. The question many have is who will win in this new industry? Maybe EHang?

EHang is a company we’ve covered many times over the past 9 years. About one year ago, its EH216-S aircraft became the first autonomous electric aircraft in the world to be approved for commercial flight. Now, at long last, it has conducted its first pilot-free test flights, in Bangkok, Thailand. The company has more test flights planned for the islands of Phuket and Koh Samui in 2025.

“This demo flight marks significant progress in integrating urban air mobility (UAM) solutions into Thailand’s aviation industry,” said Suttipong Kongpool, Director, CAAT. “EHang’s EH216-S is currently the world’s only eVTOL with airworthiness certificates, and we look forward to its commercial flight operations in certain areas of Thailand next year, which will serve as a significant contribution to Thailand’s UAM roadmap development plan.”

Thailand is clearly trying to lead with its creation of a next-gen low-altitude airspace and air mobility market. It’s not the first country that would have come to mind for me, but apparently someone in the country is excited about autonomous electric air taxis.

“The debut passenger flight of our EH216-S pilotless eVTOL in Thailand is a key milestone in EHang’s ongoing international development and that is a strong boost in promoting the transformation of global advanced urban air mobility,” said Conor Yang, CFO of EHang. “We aim to apply our pilotless eVTOL products and solutions in the Southeast Asian market. In the future, with the strong support of the CAAT, we will cooperate with our local partners to formulate a model for regular UAM operations in Thailand, contributing to the development of the urban air mobility market in Southeast Asia and worldwide.”

Interestingly, EHang just had a couple of other big announcements in the past week. For one, it announced $22 million in new investments, from Enpower, “a strategic institutional investor from the Middle East,” and Zhuhai Enpower Electric, “a Chinese leading new energy vehicle power systems provider.” Secondly, EHang announced a “breakthrough” in solid-state battery tech in partnership with the Low-Altitude Economy Battery Research Institute of the Hefei International Advanced Technology Application Promotion Center and the company Shenzhen Inx Energy Technology. You can read more about both pieces of news here.

Is EHang going to become the first company making money on electric air taxis? Furthermore, is it going to be a niche market or is it going to become a $1 trillion market as Morgan Stanley expects? Is Thailand going to be the first country with commercial autonomous electric air taxi flights? Bookmark this page and we’ll see when we need to return to it. Without a doubt, we’ll be covering Ehang again — probably sooner than later.