China’s EHang secures largest pre-order of eVTOL aircraft

Chinese eVTOL manufacturer EHang Holdings has secured its largest pre-order of 60 autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) from Malaysia’s Aerotree Flight Services (Kuala Lumpur Subang).

The order from the Aerotree Group subsidiary consists of 50 of EHang’s EH216 AAVs – which includes the standard EH216-S for passengers transport, the EH216-L for aerial logistics, and the EH216-F model for aerial firefighting. In addition, Aerotree has ordered ten units of the VT-30, EHang’s long-range eVTOL aircraft. Prior to this, Aerotree had purchased one unit of the EH216-S from EHang, the companies said in a joint statement.

They also announced a strategic partnership to jointly develop urban air mobility (UAM) business, including Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO), and training in Malaysia.

“We are pleased to enter the Malaysian market and increase our presence there through our cooperation with Aerotree. Our comprehensive AAV products and solutions are well suited to a variety of intracity and intercity UAM use cases in Malaysia, such as passenger transportation, aerial sightseeing, aerial firefighting, and aerial logistics. The rising demand and pre-orders for a large number of our passenger-grade AAVs from Japan and Malaysia will unleash great market potential for EHang in Asia,” said its founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, Huazhi Hu.

Aerotree is a wholly-owned Malaysian company active in aerospace and aviation training, technology development, MRO, and other development and related services in the aerospace and aviation industry. It has an Air Service Permit (ASP) from the Malaysian Aviation Commission and is an authorised aircraft maintenance organisation (AMO) approved by the Malaysian State Technical Airworthiness Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia.