In August 2020 the Japanese start-up SkyDrive flew a piloted prototype of its flying car in public for the first time, and said it hoped to launch a flying-car service in 2023. That date was not met. By 2025 SkyDrive was flying a newer model at the Osaka Expo, but it was still working toward the safety certification it needs before carrying paying passengers.
Here is what the original test showed, what the company promised, and what has actually happened since.
What the 2020 test flight showed
On 25 August 2020 the SD-03 prototype took off at the Toyota Test Field, a 10,000-square-metre site in Japan that SkyDrive used as its development base. With a pilot on board, it circled the field for about four minutes, helped by a computer-assisted control system while engineers monitored it from the ground, according to the company's announcement.
The SD-03 was a single-seat electric aircraft about four metres long, four metres wide and two metres tall, needing roughly the ground space of two parked cars. It had four arms, each with two counter-rotating propellers driven by separate motors, so eight motors in total. That redundancy matters: if one motor fails, the others can keep the craft stable.
SkyDrive's video of the demonstration flight. The 2023 date in the title was the company's goal at the time, not a confirmed launch.
Who is behind SkyDrive
SkyDrive was founded in 2018 and grew out of Cartivator, a volunteer group of engineers who began working on a flying car in 2012 and received early backing from Toyota. Its chief executive, Tomohiro Fukuzawa, is a former Toyota engineer. In 2020 The Japan Times named NEC, Panasonic and Yazaki among the companies supporting the project.
The aircraft SkyDrive described as its first commercial model was then called the SD-XX: a two-seat, battery-powered vehicle 1.5 metres tall and about 4 by 3.5 metres across, which the company said would make it the smallest eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) of its kind. It was expected to reach around 100 km/h with a range of a few tens of kilometres.
The big promises, and one that needed correcting
Fukuzawa's long-term vision was bold. He told The Japan Times he believed that by 2050 anyone would be able to fly to any destination within Tokyo's 23 central wards in about 10 minutes. Earlier reports sometimes credited that plan, and a Tokyo taxi service by 2023, to Toyota itself; both were SkyDrive's goals, not Toyota's.
He was also frank about the obstacles. The two hardest, he said, were getting certified for commercial flights with the same safety as existing aircraft, and persuading the public to want to ride in one. In August 2020 he estimated the company had covered only about 20 percent of the road so far.
Analysts were cautious too. Morgan Stanley's Rajeev Lalwani expected the market to start as an "ultraniche add-on to existing transportation infrastructure", much like helicopters today, before possibly becoming a cheaper way to travel short and medium distances.
Why the 2023 goal slipped
Certifying a new kind of aircraft is slow. Regulators have to approve the design, the way it is built and the way it is operated, and eVTOLs do not fit neatly into the rules written for helicopters or airplanes. Batteries limit range and payload, noise has to be acceptable over cities, and landing sites, often called vertiports, have to be built and approved.
SkyDrive was not alone. Many rivals in Europe and the United States announced ambitious early dates in the late 2010s and later pushed them back. Uber, which had promoted air taxis through its Elevate unit, sold that business to Joby Aviation at the end of 2020.
For SkyDrive, the practical steps continued. It partnered with Suzuki in 2022, and in March 2024 began producing its aircraft at a Suzuki-owned plant, according to a 2025 company release.
Where SkyDrive stood in 2025
At Expo 2025 in Osaka, SkyDrive's production model, the SD-05, made its first flight from the Expo vertiport on 9 April 2025. It flew further demonstrations there from 31 July to 24 August, and the company planned more flights in September at the Osakako vertiport run by Osaka Metro.
These were demonstrations, not a passenger service. The company said it was working with aviation authorities in Japan and the United States toward certification, and it gave no date for commercial operations.
Will flying cars really ease traffic?
The idea that flying cars will clear congested streets is the most common myth around them. Even optimistic plans start with small numbers of aircraft on fixed routes, more like an air taxi or helicopter shuttle than a car in every garage. Despite the name, vehicles like the SD-03 cannot drive on roads at all; flying car is a popular label for a small, piloted electric multicopter.
The realistic near-term uses are shorter: airport links, trips across bays or mountains where roads are slow, emergency and disaster response, and tourism flights. If those work safely and affordably, wider use could follow. For now, SkyDrive's story is a useful guide to reading flying-car headlines: a test flight proves the machine can fly, but certification, infrastructure and public trust decide when you can buy a ticket.
Sources: The Japan Times: SkyDrive and Tomohiro Fukuzawa (August 2020); Vertical Flight Society (evtol.news): SkyDrive conducts first public manned flight in Japan; SkyDrive press release, 28 August 2020 (PDF); Wikipedia: SkyDrive (company); Business Wire: SkyDrive demonstration flights at Expo 2025 (July 2025). Video: SkyDrive Inc.
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