(Yicai) April 8 -- Chinese urban air mobility technology platform company EHang Holdings has received the world’s first production certificate for passenger-carrying self-driving electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China yesterday awarded EHang’s EH216-S the world’s first-ever production certificate for eVTOL, the Guangzhou-based company announced yesterday.

EH216-S had already secured the type certificate and the standard airworthiness certificates, meaning that the eVTOL now possesses all licenses necessary to kick off mass production and be put into commercial operation, EHang noted.

“The issuance of the production certificate is pivotal for the EH216-S as it opens the door to mass production, and a crucial step for our advancement towards commercial operations,” said Hu Huazhi, EHang’s founder, chairman, and chief executive officer. “With the production certificate as the starting point, we are poised to gradually expand production and delivery to meet escalating market demands.”

EHang’s plant in Yunfu in China’s southern Guangdong province has already achieved an annual production capacity of 600 aircraft, He Tianxing, vice president of the company, told Yicai. Over the past few years, EHang has lured orders for thousands of units of eVTOL aircraft from both domestic and overseas clients, he added, noting that deliveries will be completed in an orderly manner in the future.

EHang will kick off commercial operations according to plans and in already selected pilot areas, He said. EVTOL’s focus will be air travel and urban tourism in the first stage, then transportation, connection, emergency rescue, and aerial commuting, to eventually realize normalized flying taxi operations, He explained.

On March 27, China's four governmental agencies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released a document planning to create a new-type universally-applied aviation system with unmanned, electrified, and intelligentized features to make the country's low-altitude economy reach a market size of CNY1 trillion (USD138.3 billion) by 2030.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione