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SkyDrive and Government of Gujarat in India sign agreement to drive eVTOL technology in the country by 2027

Japan­ese eVTOL OEM Sky­Drive has signed a Strate­gic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment with the State of Gujarat in India, to coop­er­ate on enabling the future of eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tions in the region.

With the agree­ment, the Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (DST) and Sky­Drive will explore the set­tings of the ecosys­tem that is required for social imple­men­ta­tion of our eVTOL air­crafts with­in the States of Gujarat by 2027.

In addi­tion to devel­op­ing the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem, Sky­Drive will car­ry out fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies of cre­at­ing new busi­ness relat­ed to our eVTOL in Gujarat with­in the coop­er­a­tion.

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO at Sky­Drive, said: “Sky­Drive and Suzu­ki have been col­lab­o­rat­ing in busi­ness devel­op­ment of eVTOL in India and devel­oped suit­abil­i­ty use cas­es. We are delight­ed to enter into the part­ner­ship with the most inno­v­a­tive state in India, Gujarat, also the home­town of the Prime Min­is­ter of India, to embark on the jour­ney togeth­er.

“We would like to work close­ly togeth­er as the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to pro­vide solu­tions for the social issues such as mobil­i­ty emis­sions and urban con­ges­tion.“

The Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy under the Gov­ern­ment of Gujarat pro­motes, sup­ports and facil­i­tates the growth and devel­op­ment of new and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to enable the devel­op­ment of Gujarat. The Depart­ment also works for pop­u­lar­iza­tion of Sci­ence to increase sci­en­tif­ic tem­per among the mass­es.

Sky­Drive was for­mal­ly estab­lished in July 2018 after test­ing fly­ing car con­cepts and pro­to­types from 2014, with the mis­sion of ‘tak­ing the lead in the once-in-a-cen­tu­ry mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion’.

The com­pa­ny’s vision is to cre­ate a future where every­one has access to eVTOLs as their dai­ly trans­porta­tion in Japan and across the world. The com­pa­ny suc­ceed­ed in the first crewed eVTOL flight test in Japan in 2019 and its eVTOL air­craft is in the process of acquir­ing its Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Sky­Drive has also been select­ed as a com­pa­ny to par­tic­i­pate in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) project at Expo 2025 Osa­ka, Kan­sai, Japan. Sky­Drive plans to begin pro­duc­tion of “SKYDRIVE” in the Spring 2024 at the plant owned by offi­cial pro­duc­tion part­ner Suzu­ki Motor Com­pa­ny.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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