On March 20th at 7 p.m.,the"Make Friends" live stream room on Taobao began selling EHang EH216-S unmanned aerial vehicles for human transportation, with a full price of 1.99 million yuan. Prior to this, the Taobao store certified as"EHang Enterprise Store" had listed the EH216-S on March 18th with a price of 2.39 million yuan.

As a leader in the low-altitude economy, EHang has achieved remarkable success in just a decade. But how did they manage to soar so highin such a short time?

"EHang was founded in 2014,and itreleased the world's first manned autonomous flying vehicle in 2016, and established the world's first intelligent management and dispatch platform centered around unmanned flying in Guangzhou in 2017," said He Tianxing, Vice President of EHang.

In October 2023, EHang's independently developed EH216-S successfully obtained the world's first type certificate and standard airworthiness certificate for unmanned aerial vehicles for passenger eVTOL from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

What is the significance of this certificate?"All manned aircraft must acquire airworthiness certification, which is a universal rule in the civil aviation industry worldwide. With it, we can proceed with subsequent work and move towards commercialization. So far, there hasn't been a second company in the world to achieve this," He Tianxing explained. Previously, there were no universal rules for unmanned passenger aircraft, making obtaining type certificates and standard airworthiness certificates the biggest challenge.

It is reported that during the certification process, EHang developed a large number of patented technologies and led the world in intellectual property rights in this field.

Why was EHang able to obtain the world's first certificate? He Tianxing told reporters that, on the one hand, China's technological development over the past decade is substantial, laying a particularly good foundation for the development of other industries, ranging from the internet economy to the digital economy. On the other hand, the low-altitude economy is an emerging economy model characterized by digitization, intelligence, and networking, and the development of smart industries has driven opportunities for the low-altitude economy.

He Tianxing stated thatin the past decade since its establishment, EHang has obtained flight permits from 14 countries including China, conducted more than 45,000 safe flights globally, leading in flight volume worldwide. The EH216-S model has been test-flown in 14 countries.

In He Tianxing's view, the rapid development of EHang is not only due to the perseverance of employees but also inseparable from the fertile soil of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area(GBA).

"The upstream and downstream industrial chains, supply chains, service chains, capital chains, and talent chains in theGBA offer sufficient resources, providing convenience for our research and development investment, talent cultivation, material supply, and complete machine manufacturing. Here, we don't worry about not finding relevant chain-leading companies, nor do we worry about whether the cost is very high. We can easily find suitable supporting supply chain companies, whichhelpsus achieve technological iteration while maintaining rapid research and development," said He Tianxing.

首款国产“空中的士”淘宝开售

3月20日19时，“交个朋友”直播间开售亿航智能EH216-S无人驾驶载人航空器，全款到手金额为199万元。在此之前，认证为“亿航智能企业店铺”的淘宝店，于3月18日上架了EH216-S，报价为239万元。

作为低空经济龙头，亿航智能成立不过十年，又是如何做到乘势高飞呢？

“我们是在2014年成立，2016年发布了全球首款载人级自动驾驶飞行器，2017年在广州建立了全球第一座围绕着无人驾驶的智慧管理调度平台。”亿航智能副总裁贺天星对记者说。

2023年10月，亿航智能自主研发的EH216-S成功获得中国民航局颁发的全球首张无人驾驶载人eVTOL航空器的型号合格证和标准适航证。

这张证意味着什么？“所有的载人类航空器都必须做适航认证，这是全世界民航业的通用规则。有了它才能进行后续的工作，才能走到商业化阶段，到目前为止全球还没有出现第二家。”贺天星介绍，此前全世界没有任何一个关于无人驾驶载人机型的可参考通用规则，这是获取型号合格证和标准适航证的最大挑战。

据介绍，在获取证书的过程中，亿航智能制定了大量的专利技术，在该领域的知识产权总量在全世界范围也处于遥遥领先。

亿航智能为何能拿到全球首证？贺天星告诉记者，一方面，中国过去十年科技发展越来越强大，从互联网经济到数字经济，为其他产业的发展奠定了特别好的基础；另一方面，低空经济是一个数字化、智能化、网联化的新经济，智慧产业的发展带动了整个产业的发展机遇。

贺天星称，亿航智能成立这十年来，目前已拿到了包括中国在内14个国家的特许飞行证，在全球范围内进行了超过4.5万架次的安全飞行，飞行总量在全球也是遥遥领先，其中EH216-S机型已在14个国家都试飞过。

在贺天星看来，亿航智能的快速发展，除了企业发展过程中的这些执着，也离不开粤港澳大湾区这片沃土。

“粤港澳大湾区的上下游产业链、供应链、服务链、资金链、人才链都非常充足，为我们的研发投入、人才培养、材料供应、整机制造等提供了便利。在这里，我们不愁找不到一些相关链主企业，也不用愁成本是不是很昂贵，可以很便利地找到合适的配套供应链企业，这就帮助我们在高速研发的状态更好地达到技术迭代。”贺天星说。

文 | 记者 许张超 孙晶 实习生 杨思睿
图 | 受访者提供
译 | 刘佳慧