Guangzhou, CHINA – At a time when autonomous passenger vehicles are still looking for their place in the unmanned aerial systems space, passenger drone maker EHang has scored a partnership with a Malaysian aviation company, which could see passenger drones becoming part of the real-life urban air mobility lexicon in the near future.

In a statement yesterday, EHang announced that it would be partnering with Aerotree Flight Services, a subsidiary of Malaysian aviation company Aerotree Group, to jointly develop UAM solutions, including Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (“MRO”) and training, in Malaysia.

“Pursuant to the Partnership, Aerotree has placed the largest pre-order for EHang’s electric passenger-grade AAVs in Malaysia for 50 units of the EH216 series, which includes the EH216-S1, EH216-L, and EH216-F, as well as 10 units of the VT-30, EHang’s long-range eVTOL,” the company said.

“Prior to it, Aerotree has purchased one unit of the EH216-S AAV from EHang.”

EHang is currently involved in several pilot projects in China and Europe to perfect its autonomous passenger drone game; as of now the tests have been positive.

The ultimate goal is to see passenger drones and fellow uncrewed counterparts in the logistics space being integrated into the busy urban airspaces across world cities.

“We are very excited about our strategic partnership with EHang to introduce the world’s leading safe, sustainable and autonomous aerial vehicles to the Malaysian market,” said Dato’ Halim Bin Othman, Managing Director of the Aerotree Group. “Leveraging our full spectrum of capabilities and partnerships that span from MRO to training, we eagerly anticipate using EHang AAVs for Malaysia’s UAM projects and civil aviation.”

For his company’s part EHang founder Huazhi Hu was excited at another opportunity to showcase what EHang can do for passenger and package logistics in the near future.

“We are pleased to enter the Malaysian market and increase our presence there through our cooperation with Aerotree,” he said. “Our comprehensive AAV products and solutions are well suited to a variety of intracity and intercity UAM use cases in Malaysia, such as passenger transportation, aerial sightseeing, aerial firefighting and aerial logistics.

“The rising demand and pre-orders for a large number of our passenger-grade AAVs from Japan and Malaysia will unleash great market potential for EHang in Asia.”