No Piloted eVTOL Holds a Major-Regulator Type Certificate as China's Pilotless EH216-S Stands Alone With Full Approvals
Why It MattersWestern eVTOL makers remain without a certified aircraft in service, leaving China's pilotless EH216-S as the only passenger-carrying eVTOL operating under a complete certification and operating framework.
No piloted eVTOL has yet secured a type certificate from any of the major aviation authorities, including the FAA, EASA, the UK CAA, Brazil's ANAC and Japan's JCAB. China is the only jurisdiction to have assembled a near-complete regulatory stack for passenger-carrying autonomous flight, and the aircraft involved carries no pilot on board. EHang's EH216-S received its CAAC type certificate on 13 October 2023, followed by a CAAC production certificate announced on 7 April 2024. On 30 March 2025, CAAC granted what were described as the world's first air operator certificates for civil pilotless aerial vehicles carrying passengers, to EHang's Guangzhou general-aviation subsidiary and its Hefei joint venture, HeYi Aviation.
Among FAA applicants, Archer is furthest along. The FAA has accepted 100 per cent of Archer's Means of Compliance submissions, and Archer completed Phase 3 of the FAA's four-phase process in April 2026 and confirmed on 11 May 2026 that it had entered Phase 4. Joby's Q2 2026 shareholder letter, dated 31 July 2026, showed Stage 5 of its five-stage process 20 per cent complete on Joby's side with 10 per cent accepted by the FAA, and Stage 4 83 per cent complete with 77 per cent accepted.
The FAA's timetable points to a distant finish line. The agency plans to publish a comprehensive advisory circular on VTOL aircraft in summer 2027, and an attendee at an FAA industry day said one required testing series would not finish by the end of 2025, with results not available until mid-2027. The Department of Transportation and the FAA selected eight state and local partners for the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program in March 2026, even though certification processes remain incomplete.
The sector's players are also in litigation. Joby sued Archer alleging corporate espionage and misuse of stolen information to disrupt a real estate developer deal; Archer counter-sued, accusing Joby of concealing ties to China and mislabelling aircraft parts as consumer goods such as hair clips and socks; and Archer filed a patent infringement suit against Vertical Aerospace, alleging copying of its Midnight design. Mike Hirschberg of H2 Advisors said continued suits would drag out certification timelines and raise costs.
