japan turns eyes to the sky — the race to make flying cars a reality in three years

japan’s government has set its eyes on the sky, announcing big investment plans into the developing of flying cars. aiming to have them roaring around the sky in three years — by 2023 — the japanese government’s goal is to solve mobility problems by using airspace to transport people in big cities, in difficult mountainous areas and remote islands. and even though big transportation companies like uber, boeing and airbus are on the race for eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft), today we present SkyDrive, one of japan’s newest flying car startups who recently unveiled the SD-XX two-seater flying car.

history has shown that mobility revolutions usually happen once every century — 100 years ago henry ford was revolutionizing the car industry with its massed-produced model T, which means that we’re ready for the next one. ‘we’re considering launching an air taxi service in big cities, either osaka or tokyo, with initial flights over the sea as it would be too risky to fly over many people all of a sudden,’ commented SkyDrive CEO tomohiro fukuzawa, a former engineer at toyota, to the japan times.

according to the newspaper, fukuzawa believes that by 2050, people in japan will be able to fly within tokyo’s 23 wards in just 10 minutes. SkyDive’s SD-XX, which was already man-tested indoors earlier this year and is currently acquiring official permissions for an outdoor test flight, is claimed to be the world’s smallest eVTOL. similar in size to a car drone, this model would be able to fly 100 kilometers per hour.

‘I’m really excited about the future prospects, because we’re about to witness a big improvement in mobility — which is rare, historically, starting from horses to cars, to airplanes and steamships,’ concludes fukuzawa. ‘about 100 years have passed since the debut of the ford model T, and we’re about to introduce an air taxi service in 2023, paving the way to achieve air travel anywhere without a need for roads or train tracks. there are many other rivals in europe and the united states, but we’d like to manufacture a vehicle that provides a comfortable ride with ‘made in japan’ quality.’