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China has officially approved the mass production of autonomous flying taxis and says commercial flights will begin in the year 2025.
Now, we have heard all of this before, so until it actually happens don’t get too excited.
For example, in 2018, we wrote, “The Cora is completely autonomous so there is no requirement for a pilot or a pilot’s license. The California-based Kitty Hawk has cooperated with the New Zealand government and hopes to have the Cora taxiing people in the skies sometime around 2021.”
Also in 2018, we reported, “Uber unveiled the prototype of their flying taxi that could allow the ride-sharing company to expand their services to the skies.”
That same year, Aston Martin announced it had designed a flying car called the Volante Vision Concept, an autonomous hybrid-electric vehicle.
And lest us not forget that in 2019, Elon Musk all but promised that he would have one million robotaxis on the roads of America by the end of 2020.
None of those things have happened.
That being said, EHang Holdings Limited, the world’s leading Urban Air Mobility technology platform company, announced in a press release earlier this month that it had “successfully obtained the Production Certificate for its EH216-S passenger-carrying pilotless electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), which is the world’s first PC granted in the global eVTOL industry.”
Here’s what it looks like…
That looks nothing like the taxis in Blade Runner.
According to Live Science…
While the EH216-S now has approval for mass production, the CAAC issued the Green Aviation Manufacturing Development Outline (2023-2035) in October 2023, which offers guidance on putting a pilot-operated eVTOL in the skies by 2025 and fully autonomous services on a large scale by 2035, including the need to establish practical regulations and insurance plans for flying cars.
While that is all well and good, what about America? When will we get autonomous flying taxis?
The United States’ Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Implementation Plan states, “Innovate28 (I28) is an FAA initiative that will culminate in integrated AAM operations with OEMs and/or operators flying between multiple origins and destinations at one or more locations in the U.S. by 2028.”
We won’t hold our breath.