The low-altitude economic system is accelerating in south China’s Shenzhen Metropolis as drones and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) reshape transport, logistics, and city mobility.
Powered fully by electricity, an eVTOL can ascend vertically to over 100 meters and waft at 130 kilometers per hour. As these futuristic “air taxis” are assign into use, of us in Shenzhen are getting a seek of the arena to attain.
Thanks to the air taxi, vacationers in Shenzhen can now attain Zhuhai — a coastal city correct all over the ocean — in correct 17 minutes. The sprint would in every other case take up to three hours by car.
The debut of eVTOLs marks no longer handiest a principal jump in innovation and market technique, but furthermore shows the compound breakthroughs Shenzhen has made in coverage, infrastructure, and application pattern within the low-altitude economic system.
In urgent or high-price eventualities, drones and eVTOLs are offering faster, extra efficient doable choices to aged transportation, and intercity drone transport is furthermore gaining traction.
Meanwhile, drones are proving most distinguished in agriculture. According to surveys from China’s agricultural department, drone-enabled prick spraying enormously reduces the use and worth of pesticides and fertilizers while increasing effectivity and precision, which has been helping handle the growing labor shortage in rural areas.
A researcher from China’s National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Heart eminent that the nation has develop into the arena’s finest particular person of agricultural drones, with information consistently showing a 10 to 20 p.c enchancment in pest regulate effectiveness, a 20 to 30 p.c reduction in pesticide use, and over a 10 p.c increase in pesticide utilization effectivity.
In Shenzhen, drone-primarily based meals offer has been transitioning from pilot testing to sparkling-scale industrial operation.
By the tip of 2024, a principal meals offer platform primarily based in Shenzhen had opened fifty three drone offer routes, done over 200,000 orders thru drone offer — nearly doubling from the earlier 300 and sixty five days — and gained better than 80,000 unique users.
“The low-altitude economy covers many fields, but at its core, it’s an integrated economic model driven by flight activities based on low-altitude airspace,” said Li Shipeng, executive director of the Low-Altitude Economic system Department of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Higher Bay Set Digital Economic system Examine Institute.
According to Li, Shenzhen leads the nation in drone utilization volume.
“According to statistics from last October, the average daily drone flight volume is about 8,000, including corporate drones and private ones. This number is higher than any other city in the country,” Li said.
