Pacific Group pre-orders up to 100 flying vehicles from SkyDrive

Sky­Drive and Pacif­ic Group, a lead­ing renew­able ener­gy com­pa­ny and invest­ment pro­mo­tion with inter­na­tion­al funds in Viet­nam, today announced that they have agreed on a pre-order of 10 of SkyDrive’s SD-05 eVTOL and a con­di­tion­al pre-order option for up to 90 fly­ing vehi­cles.

Sky­Drive and Pacif­ic Group will explore the require­ments for eVTOL vehi­cle oper­a­tions in Viet­nam, and also eval­u­ate ver­ti­ports, route and net­work plan­ning, infra­struc­ture require­ments, and ecosys­tem.

Sky­Drive CEO Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa said: “The urban streets in Viet­nam are crowd­ed with motor­cy­cles and auto­mo­biles, and we would be hap­py to con­tribute to solv­ing its social issues by pro­vid­ing eVTOLs as one of the country’s new trans­porta­tion infra­struc­tures.”

Exec­u­tive pres­i­dent and founder of Pacif­ic Group Le Ngoc Anh Minh added: “Viet­nam com­mit­ted to go net-zero by 2050 at COP26 and we can fore­see the need of eVTOL in big cities in Asia like Ho Chi Minh city in Hanoi to pro­vide a new gen­er­a­tion of trans­porta­tion means.

“Of course, we will have to work close­ly with Sky­Drive and sev­er­al author­i­ties such as Viet­nam Trans­port Min­istry, Civ­il Avi­a­tion Agency of Viet­nam, Viet­nam Min­istry of Defense from time to time to explain and present the trend and tech­nol­o­gy of eVTOL to get approval and to enhance reg­u­la­tions.

“There are many hur­dles of trans­port facil­i­ties and reg­u­la­tion and also per­cep­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty in the time to come but we shall work togeth­er with Sky­Drive to solve each from time to time.

“Next year 2023 will mark the 50th year anniver­sary of Viet­nam and Japan diplo­mat­ic rela­tions and we real­ly hope to cre­ate sev­er­al activ­i­ties with Sky­Drive to pro­mote this eVTOL not only for our busi­ness but also for con­tri­bu­tion to the two nation’s sci­en­tif­ic and friend­ship col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

The SD-05 is a two-seat, elec­tric-pow­ered com­pact air­craft with ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ties. Oper­at­ed by a dri­ver-pilot, its flight sta­bil­i­ty is secured with the assis­tance of a com­put­er-con­trolled flight sys­tem. Sky­Drive is in the process of acquir­ing a type cer­tifi­cate for the SD-05 from the Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT), as the first of its kind in Japan.

In Sep­tem­ber, Sky­Drive unveiled the design of its SD-05 com­mer­cial mod­el fly­ing car which it is plan­ning to launch an air taxi ser­vice dur­ing the world expo­si­tion sched­uled for 2025 in Osa­ka, Japan.

Sky­Drive to launch SD-05 air taxi ser­vice at World Expo 2025 in Osa­ka, Japan

Sky­Drive also raised a total of 9.6 bil­lion yen in the Series C round of financ­ing through a third-par­ty allot­ment of new shares and bank loans to 13 com­pa­nies includ­ing MUFG Bank, bring­ing its cumu­la­tive total raised to 14.7 bil­lion yen.

Sky­Drive Rais­es 9.6 Bil­lion Yen in Series C Fund­ing to Accel­er­ate Devel­op­ment of Fly­ing Cars and Car­go Drones