Flying taxis will become a viable method of transportation in China in the next three to five years, according to a senior executive at Ehang, a company that makes autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs).

The prediction by Ehang’s Vice President He Tianxing comes days after the company became the first company, along with its joint venture partner Hefei Heyi Aviation, to obtain a certificate to operate “civil human-carrying pilotless aerial vehicles” from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Ehang said the certification clears the way for commercial operations of its vehicles, allowing for paid human-carrying services and any other low-altitude use cases the company develops.

At first, Ehang’s AAVs will be used for tourism, with passengers able to ride along designated routes in Guangzhou and Hefei by the end of June, He told CNBC in an interview translated from Mandarin.

The company will gradually explore air taxi services as its tourist operations progress. He named Hefei and Shenzhen as examples of some of the first cities expected to get air taxi services.

Ehang’s EH216-S, which received the certification, is a fully electric, pilotless two-seater aerial vehicle that features 16 propellers, according to Ehang’s website. It has a maximum design speed of 130 kilometers per hour, with a maximum range of 30 kilometers.

He expects to get certifications to operate in additional cities this year and next, with the second set of locations for tourist operations expected to include Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Wuxi, Wenzhou and Wuhan.

For the forthcoming Hefei and Guangzhou locations, he declined to share the price per ride but hoped it would be reasonable enough to encourage more people to try out the pilotless aerial vehicle.

The experience should be “just like riding in a car,” added He, noting that no helmet or parachute is required. He said the initial length of rides offered by the company would vary from around three minutes to 10 minutes.

When asked about global markets, He said overseas partners had actively reached out since news of the certification, and he expected Ehang could expand overseas in the next few years.

Beijing first released rules for unmanned aircraft flight — vehicles without a pilot on board — in June 2023. The U.S., on the other hand, has yet to roll out comparable regulations.

Instead, Washington’s Federal Aviation Administration last year unveiled general rules for “powered-lift” vehicles, which includes some electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts. 

eVTOL encompasses electric-powered aircrafts designed to carry passengers and take off and land vertically without the need for runways. However, the FAA has focused on those that are manually piloted.

Tu Le, founder of auto industry consultancy Sino Auto Insights, told CNBC that the U.S. has been falling behind China and even the EU in eVTOLs due to this lack of favorable policies, chalking it up to overregulation, lobbying from competing industries or “just plain politics.”

Meanwhile, China has been backing eVTOL technology as part of its “low-altitude economy,” the development of which has become a major policy goal. The term refers to economic activity taking place in airspace below 1,000 meters, well under the around 9,000 meters most commercial planes cruise around.  

In addition to flying taxis and other eVTOLs, examples of the low-altitude economy include unmanned drones for delivery and helicopter-operated air shuttle routes.

The term was recently included in China’s annual work report for 2025, with the government promising to promote its development. Beijing has also committed to boosting consumption in the low-altitude economy, notably in low-altitude tourism, air sports, and consumer drones, as part of a special action plan in March.

Already, China’s low-altitude economy is one of its fastest-growing industries, with it projected to be worth 1.5 trillion yuan ($205 billion) by 2025, and almost double that by 2035, according to a report by the research group Hurun. 

Last month, XPeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng told state media the company plans to mass-produce flying cars by 2026, as China’s low-altitude economy is boosted by supportive policy.

However, despite China leading in eVTOL regulation, it is expected to face competition from international companies also investing in and building various types of air vehicle technologies. 

Some of those companies include international companies like America’s Boeing, France’s Airbus, and the Brazilian firm Embraer, which have taken steps to take advantage of future flying car demand. 

Numerous startups, including Joby Aviation, Archer, and Wisk, in the U.S. are also planning on launching various commercial air taxi services over the next few years. 

According to Wedbush’s Ives, the global electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft business could grow into a $30 billion market opportunity over the next decade.

BEIJING — China’s reaction to new U.S. tariffs will likely focus on domestic stimulus and strengthening ties with trading partners, according to analysts based in Greater China.

Hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced additional 34% tariffs on China, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on the U.S. to cancel the tariffs, and vowed unspecified countermeasures. The sweeping U.S. policy also slapped new duties on the European Union and major Asian countries.

Chinese exports to the U.S. this year had already been hit by 20% in additional tariffs, raising the total rate on shipments from China to 54%, among the highest levied by the Trump administration. The effective rate for individual product lines can vary.

But, as has been the case, the closing line of the Chinese statement was a call to negotiate.

“I think the focus of China’s response in the near term won’t be retaliatory tariffs or such measures,” said Bruce Pang, adjunct associate professor at CUHK Business School. That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language statement.

Instead, Pang expects China to focus on improving its own economy by diversifying export destinations and products, as well as doubling down on its priority of boosting domestic consumption.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has since September stepped up stimulus efforts by expanding the fiscal deficit, increasing a consumption trade-in subsidy program and calling for a halt in the real estate slump. Notably, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs including Alibaba founder Jack Ma in February, in a show of support for the private sector.

The policy reversal — from regulatory tightening in recent years — reflects how Beijing has been “anticipating the coming slowdown or even crash in exports,” Macquarie’s Chief China Economist Larry Hu said in a report, ahead of Trump’s latest tariff announcement. He pointed out that the pandemic-induced export boom of 2021 enabled Beijing to “launch a massive regulatory campaign.”

“My view stays the same,” Hu said in an email Thursday. “Beijing will use domestic stimulus to offset the impact of tariffs, so that they could still achieve the growth target of ‘around 5%.'”

Instead of retaliatory tariffs, Hu also expects Beijing will focus on still using blacklists, export controls on critical minerals and probes into foreign companies in China. Hu also anticipates China will keep the yuan strong against the U.S. dollar and resist calls from retailers to cut prices — as a way to push inflationary pressure onto the U.S.

China’s top leaders in early March announced they would pursue a target of around 5% growth in gross domestic product this year, a task they emphasized would require “very arduous work” to achieve. The finance ministry also hinted it could increase fiscal support if needed.

About 20% of China’s economy relies on exports, according to Goldman Sachs. They previously estimated that new U.S. tariffs of around 60% on China would lower real GDP by around 2 percentage points. The firm still maintains a full-year forecast of 4.5% GDP growth.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) joined China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand in forming the world’s largest free trade bloc — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — which came into being in early 2022. The U.S. and India are not members of the RCEP.

“RCEP member countries will naturally deepen trade ties with one another,” Yue Su, principal economist, China, at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note Thursday.

“This is also partly because China’s economy is likely to remain the most — or at least among the most—stable in relative terms, given the government’s strong commitment to its growth targets and its readiness to deploy fiscal policy measures when needed,” she said.

He said last week the U.S. could lower its tariffs on China to help close a deal for Beijing-based ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations.

But the level of new tariffs on China was worse than many investors expected.

“Unlike some of the optimistic market forecasts, we do not expect a US-China bilateral grand bargain,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said in a note Thursday.

“We expect tensions between these two mega economies to worsen significantly,” he said, “especially as China has been making large strides in high-tech sectors, including AI and robotics.”