Blue-sky thinking

How we travel has never been more important. With the world increasingly looking to safer, faster and greener ways of getting from A to B, mobility is set to become one of the key topics at the Osaka Expo in 2025 and, as with most of the plans for the World Fair, organizers are keen to lead by example. That’s why in September 2021 Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka signed a deal with SkyDrive—a startup which has been developing “flying cars” since its founding in July 2018—to provide airborne taxi services at the Expo. The flying cars ferrying visitors will be eVTOLs, or electric vertical take-off and landing aircrafts, capable of covering distances that would take 20 to 40 minutes by public transportation in five to 10 minutes, all while traveling in total comfort and enjoying the scenery of Osaka from above.

Tomohiro Fukuzawa, the man in charge of SkyDrive, is a former employee of Toyota Motor Corporation. He joined Toyota in 2010 after graduating from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Engineering and worked on the global procurement of automotive parts. While out drinking with a group of colleagues one time, the topic of building “innovative cars” came up. The sociable brainstorming session eventually led to the 2012 establishment of Cartivator, an organization of like-minded individuals dedicated to automotive innovation.

SkyDrive’s SD-03 prototype made its world debut on 25th August 2020 | ©SkyDrive

The flying cars ferrying visitors will be capable of covering distances that would take 20 to 40 minutes by public transportation in five to 10 minutes

The sky’s the limit

Fukuzawa became the group’s co-chairman and talk soon turned to developing a flying car. The members of the group initially worked on the project in their private time, but it soon became clear that that wouldn’t be enough if they were to meet their target of a demonstration flight by 2020. To speed things up, Fukuzawa, who had left Toyota Motor in 2017 to start his own manufacturing consultancy, launched SkyDrive.

When asked whether he was positive that he could complete a flying car at that time, Fukuzawa laughs. “Neither I nor any of my colleagues had such confidence,” he says. “If we’d really thought we could do it, I think the others would have quit Toyota, too.” Still he persevered. “In practical terms, [building a flying car] is possible,” he says. “So I thought we should give it a try.”

“In practical terms, building a flying car is possible. So I thought we should give it a try”

Development began in earnest in 2017, the year before SkyDrive was established, and by September 2018 the company was conducting driving and indoor flight tests with their first model, the SD-01. By December of the following year, they had pulled off a manned flight test with their second model, the SD-02. Then, in August 2020—which had been the team’s target all along—the flying car’s third version, the SD-03, was used to conduct a four-minute manned test flight in public.

“In practical terms, building a flying car is possible. So I thought we should give it a try”

While developing his machine, Fukuzawa also worked hard to raise funds, and by August 2020 he had accumulated a total of ¥5.1 billion. On top of that, he was busy recruiting top talent—SkyDrive’s workforce currently stands at 110, including Nobuo Kishi, a former vice president and chief engineer at Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation, as CTO.

The company’s application for type certification of a flying car was accepted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) in October 2021. This process involves the MLIT examining whether the aircraft being developed meets the safety and environmental standards required by Japan’s Civil Aeronautics Act. To date, SkyDrive is the only eVTOL manufacturer to have had its application accepted for review.

SkyDrive’s SD-02 completed the first manned flight of a car in Japan in December 2019 | ©SkyDrive

“What could be better than covering the shortest distance in the fastest, most scenic, and most comfortable way possible?”

Taking flight

Fukuzawa’s company is currently developing a new model, the SD-05, which is set for completion in 2025. In favorable weather conditions, the SD-05 will be able to fly around 10 kilometers in 10 to 20 minutes. The investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that the eVTOL market will exceed ¥900 trillion by 2050, and new eVTOL manufacturers are emerging, mainly in Europe, the United States, and China. With the competition set to heat up rapidly, what are the SD-05’s strengths? “The SD-05 is as compact and light as a regular car, so it’ll be easy to land almost anywhere,” says Fukuzawa. “Our eventual goal is to become like the Japanese auto manufacturers who dominated the global market with their high fuel efficiency and ease of use.”

Fukuzawa believes that flying cars will change not only transportation but society as a whole. When asked where he’d like to fly in his new aircraft once it’s completed, the innovator’s reply was emphatic: “I’d just like to be in it all the time. I have no need to travel on the ground. What could be better than covering the shortest distance in the fastest, most scenic, and most comfortable way possible?”