Friday, December 20, 2019

ICYMI: Chinese Autonomous Electric Taxi Co., EHang, Did Their U.S. IPO Last Week (EH)

From DroneLife, December 12:
Passenger Drone Company Ehang Announces IPO
Passenger drone company Ehang has been fascinating the drone industry for years, since the company first introduced a passenger drone prototype at CES in January of 2016, after winning over $50 million in venture capital in 2015.  In 2017, rumors of financial difficulties (which the company said were untrue) dogged Ehang – but in recent years, Ehang has scored a series of partnerships and wins working with the Chinese government and others on urban drone delivery, urban air mobility and drone taxis.  The company has proven to be an industry leader in China where a large number of the world’s drone manufacturers are located, working on major national projects like developing urban drone networks.

At Amsterdam Drone Week last week, a session discussion revealed that Ehang is very close to commercial production of passenger drones – ready to streamline production and processes to make drone taxis commercially priced and commercially viable.  While the technology is there, infrastructure and regulations to support passenger drone use remains to be developed in most of the world – but the support that the company has received is indicative of the appetite for environmentally clean transportation alternatives around the globe.  With this IPO, the company becomes one of the few drone specific companies to be offered publicly....
....MORE

 The stock was priced at $12.50, the low end of the range, and traded down a penny the first day.
$9.47 last, up a few pennies.
Previous EHang mentions:
January 2016
"Drone able to transport humans shown at Consumer Electronics Show by Chinese drone company"
July 2018
"Larry Page is quietly amassing a ‘flying car’ empire"
December 2018
"Morgan Stanley says market for self-flying cars could rise to $1.5 trillion by 2040"
From our introduction to 2016's "Uber to Challenge Airbus in the Autonomous Electric Flying Taxi Business":
As the only analysts covering the nascent as-yet-theoretical autonomous electric flying taxi market we intend to be the the go-to source for all things autonomous electric flying taxi and/or theoretical....
It appears we may have some upstart analyst competition. Arrivistes!
Or, as Churchill's detective/bodyguard was reputed to have commented on meeting a certain American "He has the whiff of the parvenu about him".