eVTOL Players in China
The world’s first electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) emerged in 2011. Developed by AgustaWestland, it was a technology demonstrator aircraft incorporated with many new innovations of the time. The team took less than 6 months from the design phase to the first flight of the demonstrator with the philosophy as “anything that is borderline impossible, we want to do”.
In a decade’s time, eVTOL becomes possible with major advances in electric propulsion and the growing demand for faster and zero emission mobility solutions, one of which is urban air mobility (UAM).
There are three types of companies currently engaged in the development of eVTOL: aircraft manufactures, auto OEMs and startups. In this article, we will review a list of eVTOL players on the China market.
EHang
EHang was founded in 2014 and launched the first autonomous passenger drone EHang 184 in January 2016. In the following years, the company introduced EHang 216, Falcon B, etc. It has formed three business lines to commercialize the products, which are smart city management, aerial media and most importantly passenger/goods transportation.
EHang launched an UAM Pilot City Initiative in 2019 and has so far reached partnership agreement with four cities: Linz in Austria, Seville, Llíria and Zaragoza in Spain. Till the first half of 2020, EHang has delivered 89 aircrafts to customers in different industries.
EHang went public on NASDAQ in December 2019 as the first stock in UAM sector globally.
Xpeng HT
HT Aero has been involved in the development of low-altitude aircrafts since 2013. The founder Deli Zhao is a flying enthusiast who appeared in multiple TV shows to promote his ideas and products. The business started to take off after being acquired by Xpeng in 2020.
Renamed Xpeng HT, the company has launched several eVTOL prototypes with the latest as X2, an all-electric two-seat aircraft designed to cruise at a maximum speed of 130 km/hour with an endurance of 35 minutes. It plans on an official rollout of “flying cars” in 2024, which will be a fully integrated model designed for both low-altitude air travel and road driving.
Unlike most of the eVTOL developers aiming at the B2B market, Xpeng HT envisions the end products for individual consumers, which would actually be in line with Xpeng EVs.
Recently, the company secured $500 million in series A funding round.
Geely
Geely is one of the first auto OEMs to reveal ambitions in air transportation.
In 2017, Geely acquired the US-based flying car technology startup Terrafugia. Terrafugia’s first generation product TF-1 is an integration of an aircraft and an automobile with foldable wings. It is hybrid-electric powered with two seats, and has obtained an FAA Special Light-Sport Aircraft airworthiness certificate in January of this year. As TF-1 requires a 500-meter runway for takeoff with limited applications in the urban areas, the new generation TF-2A is an eVTOL model.
In 2020, Geely acquired AOSSCI, a developer of unmanned eVTOL aircraft (since 2015) based out of Sichuan province. The company has launched several products including X-Chimera and X-Shift that can be customized for various industrial solutions such as surveillance, monitoring, mapping, emergency rescue, etc.
Terrafugia and AOSSCI merged into one entity called Aerofugia, while retained the original brand names and their product lines.
In 2019, Geely participated in the series C funding round of Volocopter, a German innovator in the UAM sector with aircraft family for passengers and goods. In September of this year, Volocoper and Aerofugia formed a joint venture company headquartered in Chengdu, Sichuan aiming to bring UAM to China within the next 3 to 5 years. The JV also agreed to purchase 150 Volocopter aircrafts, which will be produced in China.
Autoflight
Autoflight is engaged in the technology development and product manufacturing of autonomous eVTOL since 2017. The company is headquartered in Shanghai with additional R&D centers in Munich and Shenzhen.
Among its product lines, V50 White Shark is a pure electric VTOL aircraft that concluded the first flight in January 2019 and went into mass production in May 2020. The main applications are industrial (plateau surveying and mapping, security and inspection). V400 Albatross was launched in September 2020 as a cargo drone, available in pure electric or hybrid versions.
V1000CG is designed for logistics in extreme areas like islands, mountains and plateaus with extended payload and endurance from V400. A milestone product V1500M is intended for UAM scenarios to carry 3–4 passengers.
Earlier in September, Autoflight announced the completion of series A funding round of $100 million.
Boundary.AI
Founded in November 2020, Boundary.AI is positioned as the supplier of flight control and autonomous piloting systems to cargo and passenger eVTOL aircrafts. The company completed angel round financing in May of this year.
It has launched the first product Boundary Cube, an off-the-shelf flight control system for industrial eVTOL supporting aircraft configuration with tilting rotors or without tilting mechanism.
TCab Tech
TCab Tech was founded in May 2021 aiming to develop and produce passenger eVTOL aircraft and later to run UAM operations with its products. In August, it revealed some details on its E20 project, which will be an all-electric VTOL with 5 seats (a pilot is needed but autonomous capability is being developed). It will adopt a tilting-rotor design and is supposed to cruise at a maximum speed of 260 km/hour with maximum range of 200km.
In September, TCab announced the completion of seed and seed+ funding rounds.
Volant Aero Tech
Volant was founded in June 2021 by a group of industry veterans from the aero tech space and soon raised seed round funding. It is developing a passenger eVTOL model for UAM scenarios named VT-25, which adopted a “Lift + Cruise” configuration with 5 seats (including one pilot). It has conducted the first flight in September with a 1/3rd-scale model.
For eVTOL, sky is truly the limit.
By the way, I wrote a piece on Autonomous Driving — Airplane vs. Automobile a while back. Feel free to check it out.
