TOKYO — SkyDrive may be Japan’s brightest hope for a foothold in the emerging air mobility business. And it might open a door for Suzuki to enter the U.S. market with a new product.
SkyDrive’s plan for an all-electric, three-person flying machine — lifted off the ground by a crown of 12 rotors — thrusts the startup into the global fight against rivals from the U.S. and Europe.
The Toyota City-based company is banking on the same formula that made Japanese cars an international hit — bulletproof quality, clever design, cost control and production prowess.
This month, SkyDrive got a big boost thanks to new major backing from Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor Corp. and a fresh batch of preorders from an American customer.
On March 6, Suzuki began production of SkyDrive’s prototype aircraft at one of its factories in central Japan. And a week later, on March 14, SkyDrive booked preorders for up to five aircraft from Bravo Air, a private air charter service operating out of Augusta, Ga.
At the Suzuki factory in Iwata, a city between Tokyo and Nagoya, workers in blue and white uniforms drove home the first rivet for a craft that aims to take flight at Expo 2025, the world’s fair being hosted in Osaka and the Kansai region of Japan starting in April next year. On hand were Suzuki President Toshihiro Suzuki and Tomohiro Fukuzawa, the 36-year-old CEO of SkyDrive.
“It is the beginning of a new phase,” Fukuzawa said of the partnership with Suzuki, which announced its first investment in SkyDrive in 2022 and increased its stake in January.
“We share a goal of quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction, making them an ideal partner in our quest to revolutionize urban air mobility,” Fukuzawa said.
For Suzuki, it also offers another tangential entry point to the U.S. The minicar specialist said in 2012 it would stop passenger car sales in the U.S., although the company still sells plenty of motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and outboard marine motors to Americans.
In Japan, no other homegrown startup is as close as SkyDrive to taking flight for passenger service. Toyota Motor Corp. is backing American rival Joby Aviation. Honda, which already makes traditional jet-powered aircraft, also has a unit working on the technology. Subaru, which has an aerospace division that manufactures helicopters, showed its vision for a UFO-looking electric aircraft at last fall’s Japan Mobility Show. But Subaru says it has no business plans for now.
Like SkyDrive, air mobility ventures around the world are nearing the point of takeoff.
A study commissioned by one hopeful, New Horizon Aircraft, found that investors in the field expect the first commercial flights in 2025 with established routes taking shape in 2026.
The global market for electric air mobility, valued at $1.2 billion in 2023, is expected to grow at an annual rate of 52 percent to some $23.4 billion in 2030, according to research firm Markets and Markets.
Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs, could be churned out by the thousands in factories like Suzuki’s that leverage the auto industry’s expertise in quality and efficiency.
To be sure, hurdles abound, not just for SkyDrive but for all eVTOL entrants.
Even if the aircraft makers get certification, manage mass production and deliver products to customers, the aircraft may still be grounded. Just as with electric cars, eVTOLs will need charging stations and landing sites, an infrastructure that currently is all but nonexistent.
And as with self-driving cars, reams of new regulations will be needed to govern this new way of getting around, especially rules that set aside airspace and ensure public and passenger safety.
SkyDrive is starting with production capacity of just 100 aircraft a year at Suzuki’s plant.
But the company wants to eclipse that as soon as it can get certification from Japanese and U.S. aviation authorities, said Kenji Nakagawa, general manager for business development.
SkyDrive eyes commercialization around 2026 and mass production starting in 2027.
But first will come demonstration flights with passengers aboard at next year’s Osaka Kansai Expo. SkyDrive won’t be alone. Global rivals including Joby Aviation from the U.S., Germany’s Volocopter and Vertical Aerospace from the U.K. are also expected to be showing off their technology.
The lineup underscores the aerial ambitions of global automakers. Volocopter has funding from Mercedes-Benz and Geely. Joby has $400 million in investment from Toyota.
SkyDrive also once had Toyota’s eye. The company is based in the carmaker’s hometown of Toyota City and traces its roots to a group of volunteers that included Toyota Motor employees.
CEO Fukuzawa himself cut his teeth working in global parts procurement at Toyota. SkyDrive even got ¥42.5 million ($289,400) in seed money from Toyota over a three-year period that ended in 2020.
After that, however, the world’s biggest automaker turned its focus to the more established Joby. Joby had a head start of several years over SkyDrive and went public in 2021.
Still, as Japan’s only eVTOL player, SkyDrive was not left hanging. It won backing from the Japanese government, which in recent years has stepped up support for startups in emerging technologies. That push is partly to counterbalance similar policies pursued next door in China.
“We are very lucky to be the first runner in Japan because the Japanese government supports us,” Nakagawa said. “We need Japanese government support to proceed with development.”
To date, SkyDrive has won $188 million of investment, including $85 million in grants from the Japanese government. That total includes a first round of funding from Suzuki, but not the second tranche injected in January. Suzuki has not disclosed how much it has invested.
SkyDrive will lean into the made-in-Japan brand to sell quality, while counting on Suzuki’s knack for low-cost engineering and manufacturing to deliver a cost-competitive product.
“Suzuki has the philosophy to create very compact mobility for everybody,” Nakagawa said. “Our vision is to create very compact and efficient aircraft for everybody. So our visions are very close. We are trying to make the once-in-a-century mobility revolution together.”
SkyDrive set up a subsidiary called Sky Works to handle production at Suzuki’s factory.
SkyDrive’s aircraft, the SkyDrive SD-05, looks like a mini-helicopter. It has landing rails and a bubble-like cabin that can house a pilot and two passengers. But instead of a single rotor and tail, the craft is encircled by a halo of 12 rotors, in a layout resembling an oversized drone.
It will run on lithium ion batteries supplied by Electric Power Systems of North Logan, Utah.
The craft will have a range of about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles), a maximum cruising speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) and a maximum takeoff weight of 1,400 kilograms (3,086 pounds).
To make it all happen, SkyDrive will tap into Japan’s well-tuned manufacturing sector for suppliers.
Carbon fiber giant Toray will supply the body and rotor frames. Electric motors and rotors will be sourced from Japanese Tier 1 companies that SkyDrive has yet to publicly identify.
Suzuki supplies funding, the manufacturing facility and teams of engineers to the project. SkyDrive is banking on Suzuki to also open the door to sales in India, where Suzuki Motor and its local joint venture, Maruti Suzuki, control about 40 percent of the passenger vehicle market.
Indeed, after Japan and the U.S., India and Southeast Asia are SkyDrive’s main target markets.
SkyDrive, which has 236 employees, had preorders for more than 250 aircraft as of December.
Austin Aviation in the U.S., raised its hand for up to five. Customers in Japan accounted for three of the preorders. An aircraft leasing company in South Korea ordered up to 50.
And two companies in Vietnam signed on to take up to 100 SkyDrives each.
SkyDrive says finished aircraft will be priced between $1.5 million to $2 million.
Japan’s mountainous archipelago makes it uniquely suited for this kind of aerial mobility. The landscape is crisscrossed by mountains and valleys, while major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya are wrapped around giant bays. A multitude of islands are reachable only by boat.
Getting from A to B in Japan can be a circuitous, vexing, time-consuming journey. An affordable eVTOL that beelines over mountains or hopscotches to islands could be a boon.
For now, the Suzuki-SkyDrive project has zero revenue and hardly any international investment. But with prototype production finally taking wing, thanks to Suzuki, SkyDrive hopes to raise its global profile this year and open the tap to funds flowing in from overseas.