Autel Robotics
Autel Robotics is a Shenzhen drone maker and DJI's chief Chinese rival, whose dual-use EVO and Dragonfish aircraft have seen combat in Ukraine and now sit under sweeping US import and federal-procurement bans.
Background
Founded in 2014 in Shenzhen by Chinese-American entrepreneur Maxwell Lee and Chinese businessman Li Hongjing, Autel Robotics builds consumer and commercial drones and has grown into the second-largest Chinese-origin drone brand behind DJI. It was originally a subsidiary of Autel Intelligent Technology, a vehicle-diagnostics and EV-charging firm listed on Shanghai's STAR Market as 688208, but was carved out shortly before that parent's 2020 initial public offering; the two now operate as separate legal entities linked through the founding family's shareholdings.
Autel's flagship lines are the compact EVO series, including the thermal-equipped EVO Max 4T marketed with AI target recognition and resistance to jamming, and the Dragonfish series, a fixed-wing vertical-takeoff tiltrotor built for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance that assembles in about five minutes and needs no runway. The company sells these as civilian tools for inspection, mapping, public safety and cinematography, and states publicly that it opposes military use. In practice the same airframes are inherently dual-use, and Autel has positioned itself since at least 2023 as an open challenger aiming to surpass DJI on both technology and market share.