Suzuki, SkyDrive to develop flying cars for India

A number of mainstream automakers are developing flying cars for future deployment. The list includes companies such as Uber Air, Airbus, Hyundai, and Boeing among others. Now, word is that another major automaker is entering the flying car market.

Japanese car maker Suzuki has announced a partnership with Tokyo-based flying car maker SkyDrive. As a part of this partnership, the two companies will work on developing a flying electric vehicle.

But that’s not the most interesting part of this collaboration. The two companies have announced that they will also bring these flying electric vehicles to India.

“SkyDrive and Suzuki will start consideration to collaborate in areas of business and technology that include technology R&D, planning of manufacturing and mass-production systems, development of overseas markets with an initial focus on India, and promotion of efforts to attain carbon neutrality,” the two companies said in a joint statement.

The partnership with SkyDrive will enable Suzuki to add flying cars as a fourth mobility business in addition to its existing mobility businesses, which includes automobiles, motorcycles, and outboard motors.

It is worth noting that at the moment, SkyDrive is developing a compact, two-seating electric-powered flying car with plans for full-scale production. It also plans to begin air taxi service during the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, Japan, and in other regions of the country. It remains unclear if Suzuki will join SkyDrive in one of its ongoing projects or if the two companies will work on a different project altogether. Suzuki and SkyDrive haven’t shared final details of their collaboration yet.

Notably, the development comes shortly after Suzuki Motor Corp signed a Memorandum of understanding with Gujarat for investing 150 billion Yen (Rs 104.4 approximately) for manufacturing battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV) and BEV batteries in India.

As a part of the agreement Suzuki will invest a sum of Rs 31 billion in increasing production capacity for BEV manufacturing by 2025 and Rs 73 billion for the construction of a plant for BEV batteries by 2026. In addition to this, Maruti Suzuki will invest a sum of Rs 450 million for the construction of vehicle recycling plant in the state by 2026.

The post Suzuki, SkyDrive to develop flying cars for India appeared first on BGR India.