Urban Air Mobility: Chinese drone manufacturer EHang Holdings (EH.O) has launched sales of its EH216-S model flying taxi on Taobao, a Chinese online shopping platform,  with a price tag of 2.39 million yuan ($332,060), according to reports on Monday. 

The company received safety approval certification from China's aviation authority in October.

The company states that Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is expected to change the existing transportation modes including highways, railways, airways, and waterways. A 2018 Morgan Stanley blue paper estimates that the global UAM addressable market will reach $1.5 trillion by 2040.

In February 2024, EHang Holdings Limited also announced an alliance with Telefónica Tech, a subsidiary of Telefónica, a telecommunications service provider, for better network connectivity solutions for deploying UAM intelligent solutions in Europe and Latin America.

With many prototypes being built in recent years by firms such as Airbus (A³ Vahana), Boeing (PAV), Lilium (Lilium Jet), Volocopter (VC2) and Kitty Hawk (Cora), EHang claims to be the first company to successfully launch serial production of its EH216 and EH116 AAVs for autonomous, manned flights.

(With Reuters inputs)