Electric flying cars are a step closer with a partnership between Suzuki Motor Corporation and SkyDrive, the latter having tested its flying cars and cargo drones in Japan.
The two aim to launch advanced aircraft cars by 2025 with an air taxi service at the World Expo in Osaka. SkyDrive is developing a compact, two-seat electric flying car with plans for full-scale production.
The company’s cargo drones, which can carry payloads of up to 30kg, are already used in Japanese worksites, mainly in mountainous areas.
Announced in Tokyo, the partnership agreement is part of Suzuki’s investment in electrification and growth planning, the two companies intending to collaborate on the business and technology of flying cars.
Suzuki is also investing the equivalent of A$2.667 billion for manufacturing battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and their batteries, increasing production capacity for BEVs including factory construction, and a vehicle recycling plant in India.
“Suzuki’s future mission is to achieve carbon neutrality with small cars,” says Suzuki Motor Corporation president Toshihiro Suzuki.
Air mobility specialists SkyDrive was founded in 2018 and its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft (aka flying car) has been produced as a prototype and was first tested in 2020.
SkyDrive’s eVTOL is seen as an advancement of flying cars that mark part of the Japanese government’s plans to solve mobility problems.
Airspace transportation is under consideration for taxi services in urban areas, a new means of transportation for remote islands and mountainous areas and for emergency transportation.
Seen as a viable, faster, more direct and flexible means of moving at a lower cost than competing transport modes, the eVTOL market is still at an early stage but is capturing the attention of major companies both inside and outside the aviation industry, Suzuki says.
Demanding requirements for electric powered flight means further challenges need to be met with research into cutting-edge technologies such as lithium metal batteries, advanced composites and axial flux motors, it adds.
The collaboration between Suzuki and SkyDrive will cover technology, research and development, planning of manufacturing and mass-production systems and development of overseas markets, all with the aim of attaining carbon neutrality.
Suzuki’s current focus on producing products in three mobility categories – automobiles, motorcycles and outboard motors – is now extended as the partnership with SkyDrive provides Suzuki with opportunities to explore and potentially add flying cars as a fourth mobility business.
