Japanese eVTOL aircraft developer SkyDrive has announced that the company has secured a pre-order of 100 of its vehicles.
In an announcement on July 21, 2023, SkyDrive confirmed that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Vietnamese firm CT UAV.
CT UAV is a subsidiary of CT Group, a multi-business group in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, that develops various kinds of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technologies.
The news comes just a day after SkyDrive announced its first United States based sale for five eVTOL aircraft with charter operator Austin Aviation, a subsidiary of Lowcountry Aviation Company.
In November 2022, SkyDrive secured a pre order for 100 aircraft with Pacific Group which is also located in Vietnam.
In Vietnam, significant traffic congestion is an everyday occurrence and eVTOL aircraft is seen as a solution to travelling around crowded cities.
SkyDrive and CT UAV will evaluate commercial eVTOL considerations such as vertiports, routes and network planning, infrastructure requirements, and ecosystems with interested stakeholders.
SkyDrive was formally established in July 2018 after testing flying car concepts and prototypes from 2014.
Its eVTOL aircraft, named SkyDrive SD-05, is a three-seater (one pilot and two passengers) vehicle and will travel approximately 15 km.
The commercial aircraft will debut in 2025 at the Expo 2024 in Osaka, Japan.