Ranking China’s eVTOL Leaders

China’s eVTOL developers have moved rapidly up the ranking of the emerging global advanced air mobility industry, displaying a pace of advance unmatched by even the West’s most aggressive startups.

In an effort to assess and monitor its progress, SMG Consulting has produced a version of its AAM Reality Index (ARI) specific to the Chinese industry. The China ARI ranks the country’s 16 leading passenger eVTOL developers out of the dozens that have sprung up within the last five years.

Rapid progress is being made on much less money than in the West. The leading U.S eVTOL developers have raised billions of dollars. Together, the Chinese startups have raised hundreds of millions.

“It takes seven times less to make an aircraft in China,” says Sergio Cecutta, partner at SMG Consulting. There is another key difference. In China, development of the low-altitude economy has political support at the highest level. State, provincial and municipal governments have to date announced more than $15 billion in financial and other support for the country’s AAM developers, Cecutta estimates.

SMG’s well-established ARI rates eVTOL developers based on five elements: the funding raised, the team that leads the company, the technology readiness and certification progress of their vehicles, and the production readiness for full-scale manufacturing. These are adapted to the Chinese market.

The 2025 listing has expanded greatly since SMG’s first China ARI in 2021 and, while the leaders remain the same, their performance against Cecutta’s metrics has improved dramatically.

No. 1 on both the China and the global ARIs, EHang now scores 8.5, up from 4.6 in 2021. A top score of 10 would mean a certified aircraft has entered service and is being produced in very large numbers, Cecutta says.

Guangzhou-based EHang was the first manufacturer anywhere to receive type, production and airworthiness certification for an eVTOL. Additionally, its subsidiary EHang General Aviation and Hefei-based operator Heyi Aviation in March received the first air operator certificates for passenger-carrying eVTOLs, marking the beginning of the commercialization phase for AAM in China.

EHang, meanwhile, is scaling up production of the EH216-S, doubling the size of its factory in Yunfu, Guangdong province, and building additional assembly plants in Hefei, Anhui province, and Weihai, Shandong province. By year-end, the Yunfu plant will have the capacity to build up to 1,000 units a year.

Second-ranked XPeng AeroHT and third-ranked AutoFlight are the best-funded eVTOL companies in China, each with almost three times more money than any of the others, Cecutta says. They are also examples of the strong involvement of China’s automotive industry in the low-altitude economy.

AeroHT is owned by electric vehicle (EV) maker XPeng and, in August 2024, leading EV battery maker CATL agreed to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” in AutoFlight.

In China, automakers see the low-altitude economy as an extension of their existing markets. This is most obvious in the case of AeroHT, which is developing a combination drive/fly vehicle, the Land Aircraft Carrier, as its first product. This features the X3-F eVTOL, a two-seat optionally piloted air module that is carried inside a six-wheel, hybrid-electric recreational vehicle.

Certification testing of the multicopter X3-F is underway and AeroHT, which completed a $250 million Series B funding round in July, is building a manufacturing facility in Guangzhou that is planned to come online in 2026 and ultimately be capable of producing up to 10,000 vehicles a year.

“On the passenger side, EHang is still all alone in having certified an eVTOL, but they might be joined by many OEMs in the 2026-27 timeframe,” says Cecutta.

Shanghai-based AutoFlight was the first to certify an eVTOL weighing more than 1 metric ton (1.1 ton) when its uncrewed cargo V2000CG was approved in 2024. The higher maximum takeoff weight, 2,000 kg (4,4000 lb.) for the CarryAll, put the winged eVTOL into a certification category equivalent to the FAA’s Part 21.17(b) special class for powered lift aircraft, breaking new ground.

AutoFlight has now received type, production and airworthiness certificates and delivered the first V2000CG to operator Heli Chuangxing Intelligent in early August. The startup is now pursuing type certification of the passenger-carrying V2000EM Prosperity, which uses the same lift-plus-cruise airframe, with approval expected in 2026. AutoFlight has also broken ground on an assembly facility in Wuhan, Hubei province, establishing a manufacturing presence in Central China.

Ranked fourth on SMG’s China ARI, Aerofugia is a subsidiary of Chinese automaker Geely, owner of Volvo and Lotus. The company is developing the AE200-100, a piloted five-passenger eVTOL air taxi, targeting certification in 2026.

In May, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued Aerofugia with a CCAR-135 operating certificate for the AE200, similar to the FAA Part 135 rules under which Archer and Joby plan to operate their eVTOLs.

Of the 16 companies on the China ARI, no fewer than 13 have flown full-scale prototypes, which is a remarkable achievement. By comparison, of the 15 Western eVTOL OEMs listed on SMG’s global ARI, only seven have flown full-scale vehicles. Among those developing winged eVTOL vehicles, even fewer have accomplished the key development milestone of transitioning between thrustborne vertical and wingborne horizontal flight at full scale–three Western and three Chinese.

“Transition is difficult all over the world, irrespective of the configuration,” Cecutta says. “Of the Chinese OEMs that are not developing multicopters, only three have transitioned and they also happen to be who the low-altitude industry in China sees as the eVTOL leaders.”

The three OEMs are Aerofugia, AutoFlight and Volant Aerotech, which is developing the VE25-100 piloted four-passenger eVTOL air taxi.