SkyDrive SD-05 wins iF Design Award

Sky­Drive has announced that its SD-05 eVTOL has been award­ed the iF Design Award in the Pro­fes­sion­al Con­cept cat­e­go­ry, hav­ing been select­ed from almost 11,000 entries from 56 coun­tries in 2023.

The iF Design Award is con­sid­ered to be one of the world’s largest and most pres­ti­gious design awards, along with the Red Dot Design Award and the Inter­na­tion­al Design Excel­lence Awards (IDEA).

This time, the award rec­og­nizes the con­cept of ‘The Most Acces­si­ble Fly­ing Car’ and its unique and ele­gant design that sets it apart from the oth­er eVTOL air­craft. In con­trast to the trend towards larg­er and heav­ier eVTOL air­craft, the SD-05 offers effi­cient last-mile trans­porta­tion, empha­sis­ing short dis­tances. Users can take off and land near­er to their final des­ti­na­tions, work or homes, thus elim­i­nat­ing the need to trav­el to an air­port.

Sky­Drive Design Direc­tor Taku­mi Yamamo­to com­ment­ed: “Sky­Drive has been at the fore­front of explor­ing new hori­zons in the skies. In an unprece­dent­ed envi­ron­ment with lit­tle pri­or knowl­edge or expe­ri­ence to draw from, I give my utmost respect to the team, who is push­ing for­ward with a pio­neer­ing spir­it to devel­op this prod­uct.

“I’m thrilled that our eVTOL has been award­ed the design award fol­low­ing our SkyLift car­go drone. I strong­ly believe that design can con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the future of the sky we aspire to cre­ate. We will con­tin­ue to work dili­gent­ly as a team to realise our vision of a future where every­one has access to eVTOLs as their dai­ly trans­porta­tion.”

The iF Design Award was estab­lished in 1953 to pro­mote indus­tri­al design and has since become one of the most pres­ti­gious inter­na­tion­al design awards. The com­pe­ti­tion involves a rig­or­ous review process con­duct­ed by a pan­el of 133 experts, includ­ing top-class design­ers and design lead­ers from com­pa­nies around the world.

Last month, Tai­ho engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny pre-ordered its SD-05 for com­mer­cial use. Tai­ho is a mem­ber of the Pub­lic-Pri­vate Coun­cil for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in the Kagawa prefecture’s Shikoku region, new­ly estab­lished to address traf­fic con­ges­tion in urban areas and lim­it­ed acces­si­bil­i­ty to remote islands and moun­tain­ous regions.

Tai­ho Japan pre-orders Sky­Drive SD-05 eVTOL