On April 13, 2025, the 2025 Japan International Exposition (abbreviated as “Osaka-Kansai Expo”) opened.

Flying cars are one of the main attractions of the Expo, and on April 9, just before the opening of the Expo, SkyDrive, a Japanese startup for flying cars, unveiled the first demonstration flight of its three-seater eVTOL “SD-05 model”.
The flight time was about 3 minutes and 50 seconds, with a vertical ascent of about 5 meters, a forward/rotation/backward movement of several tens of meters, followed by a vertical descent to the original position and landing. The wind speed in the vicinity was about 2 m, and SkyDrive claims that the demonstration flight was successful under favorable conditions.

The evolution of batteries will be an important factor in making flying cars more convenient in the future, but in the case of the SD-05, the current batteries have a range of about 15 km and a flight time of about 20 minutes, so for the time being, it is expected to be used only for short distances.
In addition to the cruising range, a high level of safety is also required. Many people involved and engineers, including CEO Fukuzawa and CTO Kishi, attended the demonstration flight, and we were able to hear about many unique technologies related to the aircraft from the hearing.

Regarding the safety of the aircraft, 12 rotor motors are arranged so that even if one or two rotor motors fail, the aircraft can still fly, and by arranging the rotor motors in a dome shape instead of all horizontally, if one of the rotor motors comes off, it is less likely to hit other rotor motors. This reduces the probability of secondary damage by preventing the rotor-motors from hitting other rotor-motors when one of them comes off.
This patented configuration is one of the key features of the SkyDrive airframe.

Thermal management is also an important factor in achieving safe and efficient flight.
In the SD-05 model, the large-capacity battery is located in the rear of the aircraft, but heat is generated during quick charging, so the battery must be cooled. Ground vehicles are equipped with air-cooled or water-cooled cooling systems, but flying vehicles need to be as light as possible, so the weight increase caused by the cooling system was a major issue.
However, water-cooled cooling systems have higher cooling performance, so there is a trade-off between cooling performance and weight reduction.

To solve this problem, the SD-05 is not equipped with a battery cooling system, but instead uses a water-cooled cooling system connected to the airframe during quick charging, enabling water-cooled cooling while avoiding an increase in airframe weight.
This kind of ingenuity is not required for automobiles, and can be said to be unique to flying vehicles.