SkyDrive, Saha Pathana, Saha Tokyu Sign MOU “to Jointly Explore eVTOL Business Opportunities in Thailand”

Japan-based eVTOL devel­op­er, Sky­Drive, Saha Pathana Inter-Hold­ing Pub­lic Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SPI) and Saha Tokyu Cor­po­ra­tion announced this week, they have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) “to joint­ly explore elec­tric air taxi busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties in Thai­land,” reports a press release.

The agree­ment allows Sky­Drive, SPI and Saha to study use-cas­es employ­ing eVTOLs in Sri Racha, Pat­taya and Phuket in Thai­land. The three com­pa­nies will also explore fur­ther busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, includ­ing Japan’s air taxi busi­ness in Tokyu Group’s urban devel­op­ment.

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, remarked, “While Thai­land is expe­ri­enc­ing remark­able eco­nom­ic growth, traf­fic con­ges­tion and envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion caused by auto­mo­biles are seri­ous social prob­lems. We believe our eVTOL air­craft can con­tribute to solv­ing the­ses issues.”

Shin­ji Suya­ma, MD of Saha Tokyu, com­ment­ed,  “Our com­pa­ny has been work­ing in Sriracha, Thai­land, where we’re assist­ing Japan­ese com­pa­nies to expand via using our busi­ness knowl­edge and exper­tise.”

He con­tin­ued, “We believe we can con­tribute to the local com­mu­ni­ty and econ­o­my of Thai­land by sup­port­ing the expan­sion of cut­ting-edge com­pa­nies such as Sky­Drive and to pro­vide real estate ser­vices to those who are involved in new indus­tries.”

Sky­Drive SD-05 eVTOL

Mean­while, SPI is a mem­ber of the Saha Group, a lead­ing busi­ness con­glom­er­ate in Thai­land. The com­pa­ny devel­ops indus­tri­al estates, invests in new busi­ness­es includ­ing the Si Racha Dis­trict, Chon­buri Province, while oper­at­ing pri­vate air­fields for small planes. Saha Tokyu is a joint ven­ture com­pa­ny between Tokyu in Japan and the Saha Group.

Vichai Kul­som­phob, CEO and Chair­man of SPI, said, “As an indus­tri­al park devel­op­er, we focus on tech­nol­o­gy to reduce pol­lu­tion and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty. In the past, Japan­ese com­pa­nies expand­ed their pro­duc­tion bases in var­i­ous indus­tri­al estates across Thai­land, which has led to growth in the trans­porta­tion sec­tor, where sig­nif­i­cant fuel con­sump­tion has caused envi­ron­men­tal con­cern.”

He con­tin­ued, “SPI is now explor­ing alter­na­tive trav­el modes that are safer, more con­ve­nient and faster while sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing the envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. We see SkyDrive’s eVTOL aircraft’s poten­tial to improve Thailand’s envi­ron­ment, lead­ing to this col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://en.skydrive202.com/

https://www.spi.co.th/en/home

https://sahatokyu.com/?lang=en

(Top image: From l to r, Shin­ji Suya­ma, MD of Saha Tokyu, Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, Vichai Kul­som­phob, Chair­man of SPI Exec­u­tive Board)

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