“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, March 18 — In the sci-fi film, “air taxis” that shuttle over the city are gradually entering reality.

Today, the world's first domestically produced self-developed “air taxi” Ehang EH216-S to obtain airworthiness certification is on Taobao, with a list price of 2.39 million yuan. Currently, the number of followers at the Ehang Taobao store has exceeded 10,000.

According to the product page, the product is in pre-sale status and will be shipped within 30 days after the order is placed. The latest number sold is 0, and the system shows “The shooting has been completed, but no one has paid”. The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” asked customer service about the inventory quantity, but as of press release, no response had been received.

The EH216-S is a fully intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle that can carry two people, and can achieve fully intelligent low-altitude flight without a runway at all. In December of last year, the product obtained a standard airworthiness certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, making it the world's first unmanned manned electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to obtain an airworthiness certificate. Its official domestic guide price is 2.39 million yuan, and the overseas official guide price is 410,000 US dollars.

Ehang Intelligence is the eVTOL leader. The company just disclosed its results on the evening of March 15. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023 reached 56.6 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 261%; net profit to mother was 72.26 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.23%. It expects revenue for the first quarter of 2024 to be about 58 million yuan, an increase of about 160% over the previous year.

The company said that in the fourth quarter, the EH216-S obtained the model certification and standard airworthiness certificate for the world's first unmanned manned eVTOL aircraft. Customer demand for the EH216-S surged, and the market responded positively, driving strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 — in the fourth quarter of 2023, Ehang Intelligence delivered a total of 23 EH216 series products, with a total of 52 aircraft delivered throughout the year, showing a significant increase from 21 in 2022.

Driven by performance, on March 15, local time, the US stock price of Ehang Smart rose sharply, closing up nearly 13% to 15.37 US dollars/share.

Recently, Ehang Smart has formally signed agreements with the Wuxi Municipal Transportation Bureau, Liangxi District, and Liangxi Science and Technology City to jointly build the Ehang Smart EVTOL low-altitude economic industrial base and operation headquarters project. Ehang Intelligence will cooperate with Liangxi District and Liangxi Science and Technology City to build EVTOL low-altitude application demonstration scenarios, lay out the first manned low-altitude route for autonomous vehicles in Jiangsu Province, open short-range sightseeing routes around the Ancient Canal Tourist Resort, and build the first batch of low-altitude economic demonstration scenarios and integrated cultural, commercial and sports tourism development IPs.

At the beginning of February, Ehang Intelligence also reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Guangzhou Airport Committee, the Guangzhou Development Zone Management Committee, and the Guangzhou Automobile Group. The Guangzhou Airport Committee and the Guangzhou Development Zone Management Committee will carry out low-altitude airspace and route planning and build low-altitude flight service stations; last year, they also successively reached cooperation with the Hefei Municipal Government and the Shenzhen Bao'an District Government.

The low-altitude economy is an emerging “aviation +” type of integrated economy. In recent years, China has intensively introduced relevant industrial policies, deepened airspace reforms, and promoted the low-altitude economy from exploration to development.

CITIC Securities pointed out that general aviation is the main industry in the low-altitude economy, and the drone industry is its dominant industry. Urban air traffic UAM, which combines the two, is a development hotspot, and eVTOL is the mainstream form of UAM. The low-altitude economy has strong industrial radiance and is expected to spawn a trillion-dollar industry scale. The new track will improve infrastructure and operation on the basis of the general aviation industry, expand more advanced aircraft technology, expand new application scenarios, and provide more growth growth for related industries.

It is worth mentioning that, probably due to this news, many stocks in the low-altitude economy sector rose or stopped today. By the close, Rice Information and Zongheng Co., Ltd. had risen and stopped 20CM; Yongyue Technology, Lingnan Holdings, and Shanggong Shenbei had risen and stopped.

Among them, Lingnan Holdings, Radio and Television Metrology, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, and *ST Xiyu all have cooperative relationships with Ehang Intelligence.