The rivalry between Germany’s Volocopter and China’s EHang for the lead in developing electric air taxis intensifies almost every week. EHang has just announced it is working on a new type of electric passenger aircraft, the VT-30.
The VT-30 is very different from EHang’s existing EH216 and it’s designed for longer distances such as city to city.
Details are sketchy at the moment with EHang saying the VT-30 has a hybrid structure to it can travel up to 300km with a designed flight time of up to 100 minutes – that’s an average speed of 180km/h (112mph).
What EHang means by hybrid construction is that VT-30 has wings as well as lifting propellers.
There’s a streamlined fuselage with a combined lifting rudder surface at the tail. Equipped with eight propellers on both sides, it has a pair of fixed wings, and a propelling propeller at the rear, which are designed to achieve a maximum balance of hybrid lift and push.
“The distinctive design enables VT-30 to enjoy the advantage of both vertical and taxi take-off/landing modes, while satisfying the need for longer distance and flight time,” said EHang’s statement.
“Unlike conventional fixed-wing aircrafts, it saves the runway for take-off and landing. Moreover, the tri-redundancy fly-by-wire control system can be flexibly altered into multiple modes, implying a much higher safety level for the aircraft.”
EHang VT-30
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[envira-gallery id=”86700″]EHang identifies inter-city travels among city clusters (such as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim, etc.) for the VT-30 as it is able to carry two passengers from one city to another.
Mr. Huazhi Hu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of EHang, said, “Our passenger-grade AAV EH216 is already fully equipped to travel in the cities with its lightweighted and streamlined structure, and the launch of the VT-30 provides a powerful complement to the inter-city air traffic network by meeting needs for covering longer distance.
“Moving forward, these two product series will be used as core development for a service-oriented operations strategy to improve the safety, duration and capacity for carrying both passengers and goods.
“We will work continuously to obtain regulatory certification for our various AAV products, including the VT-30, and provide a more convenient and efficient public urban air mobility operational services.”
