The first flight was successful, the 150-minute journey was shortened to 20 minutes, and the one-way fare was several hundred cheaper!
Recently, the electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) “Shengshilong” took off from the Shekou cruise home port in Shenzhen, Guangdong, and landed at the Jiuzhou Port Terminal in Zhuhai after a flight of about 20 minutes. This is the first public demonstration flight of the world’s first cross-sea and cross-city electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft route.
This aircraft can be regarded as an “air taxi”. This successful flight means that the one-way ground drive from Shenzhen to Zhuhai, which takes 2.5 to 3 hours, can be shortened to 20 minutes.
Single seat fare is 200-300 yuanManned flights are expected to start in 2026
Shenzhen and Zhuhai are located on the east and west sides of the Pearl River Estuary respectively. In the past, traveling by car had to take a detour through the Nansha Bridge or Humen Bridge, which took about 2 to 3 hours. Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft do not require traditional airports and runways and can complete a cross-city trip between Shenzhen and Zhuhai in just 20 minutes.
The electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) “Shengshilong” has a take-off weight of 2,000 kilograms, can carry 5 people, has a cruising speed of up to 200 kilometers per hour. “ after large-scale application, the single-seat fare from Shenzhen to Zhuhai will be about two to three hundred yuan in the future. “Currently, a taxi from Shenzhen to Zhuhai costs 500 to 600 yuan, which takes nearly three hours, and a boat ride costs 100 yuan, and takes more than an hour.”
This is the world’s first use of an eVTOL electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft to fly across seas and cities. After obtaining the airworthiness certificate, the aircraft is expected to start manned flights in 2026.
Pure electric power + strong autonomous drivingThe future may change the way humans travel
This new type of aircraft is a revolution in the history of the aviation industry, “just like ground oil-powered vehicles to trams, this is the transition from oil-powered helicopters to electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, and the noise is one-tenth of that of traditional helicopters or even One percent. It is precisely because of such low noise levels that in the future the sky will be able to allow many such aircraft to fly at the same time, thus achieving scale.”
Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft are called “air taxis”. They take off vertically like a helicopter, convert to fixed-wing flight mode in the air, and use pure electric power. The operating cost of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft is lower than that of helicopters. In addition, with enhanced automatic driving functions, the requirements for pilots are relatively low, so from an operational perspective, its single-seat ticket price is also relatively low. “It makes no sense to fly once or twice. It must reach scale and change human life and travel patterns to be meaningful.”
According to reports, the purpose of this technology is to serve point-to-point travel within cities and between cities in metropolitan areas. It may become an important way of air travel in the future and form a new broad market. in addition to transportation hubs, lines such as airport connections, airports to transportation hubs, and airports to urban commercial hubs will also be developed in the future. After 5 to 10 years of operation, when the entire system and ecological environment, including the regulatory system, have matured, it will enter the next stage. “At that time, you open the app and click, and an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft will fly down from a distance, pick you up, and take you to your destination automatically.”
The low-altitude economy is becoming the “new track” for industrial development focused on various places. For example, Guangdong proposed to rely on Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai to expand and strengthen the UAV industry; Shanghai proposed to break through technologies such as tilt rotors, composite wings, and intelligent flight to develop manned electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft to explore the space in the air. New transportation model; Hainan recently released the country’s first provincial airspace map suitable for unmanned aircraft flying.
UAVLUTIONS believes that the low-altitude economy contains vast opportunities. “The potential of the low-altitude economy is huge. The low-altitude economy may become a new engine for China’s economic growth in the next 10 years.”