The Chinese company EHang inaugurates Europe’s first autonomous air vehicle base at Lleida-Alguaire airport

2023-11-03 20:21:42

The Chinese company EHang inaugurated this Tuesday the Europe’s first autonomous air vehicle operations center, located at Lleida-Alguaire airport. The space will be used to test the flying cars dedicated to logistics and the transport of passengers from this world-leading company in unmanned aerial mobility solutions. EHang has chosen the Lleida airport, among others, for its modern facilities and its “innovative spirit”, explained the COO of EHang Spain and Latin America, Victoria Jing Xiang, who added that they will work to promote this industry in Europe The event had a demonstration flight of its EH216-S air taxi model.

The new test base is the result of the collaboration agreement between EHang and Aeroports de Catalunya, the first that the Chinese firm signs with an airport worldwide. Thanks to this, the company will be able to use ships, which will act as an operations center, and carry out tests in the vertiport, a base for vertical take-offs and landings.

The first took place this Tuesday during the inaugural event and consisted of a demonstration flight of the EH2016-S, the first air taxi to take off in an international airport in Europe. It has done so without passengers and the device has been controlled from the firm’s new operations center. This electric vehicle can carry 220 kilos of weightreaches a maximum speed of 130 km/h and has an autonomy of 30 minutes.

Exactly, in the middle of October, this flying car model obtained the certificate to be able to operate in Chinese airspace. As for Europe, at the moment autonomous aerial vehicles are not allowed to fly, although EHang is confident that the new center will help change this situation. “It’s not easy, but we have confidence. The technology is ready, tested and certified,” he said Victoria Jing Xiangwho admits, however, that it is also necessary to “build the ecosystem” to adapt to this new mobility.

For his part, the Secretary of Mobility of the Generalitat, Marc Sanglashighlighted that Alguaire-Lleida is the first European airport to carry out these tests of unmanned aerial vehicles and added that the experience will serve to see how the “coexistence” works between the airport’s usual activity and these vehicles.