SkyDrive to produce up to 100 of its eVTOL aircraft per year at Suzuki Plant, after establishing production subsidiary

Sky­Drive has announced con­tin­u­al progress with the Suzu­ki Motor Cor­po­ra­tion since its col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment on shar­ing busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy in March 2022, suc­cess­ful­ly fol­lowed by a basic agree­ment on man­u­fac­tur­ing in June 2023.

Sky­Drive estab­lished a pro­duc­tion sub­sidiary on 1 Sep­tem­ber 2023, for its SD-05 at a plant owned by Suzu­ki, which will be used to pro­duce up to 100 poten­tial eVTOLs per year. Build­ing work is expect­ed to begin in the Spring 2024.

Sky­Drive and Suzu­ki have been col­lab­o­rat­ing in areas of busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy R&D, plan­ning of man­u­fac­tur­ing, mass pro­duc­tion sys­tems, and the devel­op­ment of over­seas mar­kets with an ini­tial focus on India.

Sky­Drive is devel­op­ing suit­abil­i­ty use cas­es in India in areas where tourists vis­it his­tor­i­cal build­ings along rivers or by the sea. These routes are trav­elled by Indi­an reli­gious pil­grims cross­ing moun­tains and rivers.

To address seri­ous social mobil­i­ty and health issues, such as air pol­lu­tion caused by exces­sive CO2 and dai­ly urban con­ges­tion emis­sions, Sky­Drive con­tin­ues to dis­cuss with local stake­hold­ers how to con­tribute to the mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion. This ties in with the decade-long achieve­ments made by Suzu­ki in India and works to deliv­er on the poten­tial of a UAM eVTOL future.

Sky­Drive is exhibit­ing its 1/5 scale SD-05 at Suzuki’s booth at the Japan Mobil­i­ty Show 2023. Along­side, Sky­Drive will also exhib­it the full-size SD-03 Mock-Up in the Tokyo Future Tour exhi­bi­tion from Sat­ur­day 28 Octo­ber until Sun­day 5 Novem­ber.

In June, Sky­Drive announced at Paris Air Show 2023 that it signed an agree­ment with Suzu­ki Motor Cor­po­ra­tion to man­u­fac­ture its eVTOL air­craft, and will estab­lish a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary that will utilise a pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty owned by the Suzu­ki Group in Shizuo­ka Pre­fec­ture, Japan.

Sky­Drive agrees to Build eVTOL with Suzu­ki, increas­es seat capac­i­ty to three