Eve Air Mobility is pursuing simultaneous certification with Brazil's ANAC, the FAA, and EASA for its Eve 100, while EHang has already secured a Type Certificate and the world's first eVTOL Production Certificate from China's CAAC for the pilotless EH216-S.
# Certification Doesn't Start and End at the FAA
Most US eVTOL coverage centers on the FAA, but two of the industry's most closely watched certification programs run through other regulators entirely.
## Eve Air Mobility: multi-authority by design
Eve, the Embraer-backed eVTOL developer, formalized its Type Certificate application with Brazil's ANAC in February 2022 and has pursued FAA validation concurrently since 2023. ANAC published initial airworthiness criteria for the Eve 100 in November 2024 and released updated criteria for industry consultation in July 2026, with the comment period closing August 18, 2026. Eve also applied in July 2026 to begin the Type Certificate validation process with EASA. The company describes this as a deliberately comprehensive certification approach, seeking alignment across all three authorities on a shared certification basis rather than certifying market by market.
## EHang: first to a Production Certificate
China's EHang has moved fastest on paper. Its EH216-S, a pilotless, passenger-carrying eVTOL, received a Type Certificate and Standard Airworthiness Certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, followed by a Production Certificate in April 2024. EHang and CAAC describe it as the first Production Certificate ever granted to an eVTOL aircraft anywhere in the world. A Production Certificate is a distinct milestone from a Type Certificate: it certifies that a manufacturer's quality-management system can consistently build a design at scale, the regulatory gate that separates a certified prototype from a certified product line.
## Why this matters for the US-centric narrative
EH216-S's pilotless, short-range, tourism-oriented operating profile is a very different product than the piloted, longer-range air-taxi aircraft Joby, Archer, Beta, and Vertical are certifying, so it isn't a like-for-like comparison. But it's a real signal: a CAAC-certified, mass-producible eVTOL is already flying paying passengers commercially in China, while FAA and EASA powered-lift frameworks are still being finalized for the US and European air-taxi field.
Not investment advice -- for informational and technical-analysis purposes only.
