Flying Cars also known as Japanese Flying Taxi is one of the Japan’s on-going innovation in automotive industry. Japanese Flying Taxi is a cooperation and joint efforts of Toyota City, CARTIVATOR and SkyDrive Inc. to promote the research and development, and conducting the verification test for social implementation in Toyota City. SkyDrive is in charge of development of the vehicle, flight testing and verification testing. They will also take care of the improvement of business model for industrialization of the product.

The group has appointed a very experienced Chief Technology Officer, Nobuo Kishi. He worked in Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation and has handled top level posts. He is known to be an expert in project management, lean development, safety verification and system integration. Part of his job in Japanese Flying Taxi is to develop a safe and advanced aircraft that eventually will be mass produced. As part of their verification testing that started in December 2018, they conducted several unmanned flights. After successfully completing the tests, reassessing pain points and recalibrating the Japanese Flying Taxi, Mr. Kishi’s team has safely completed the first ever manned test flight of the Japanese Flying Taxi in March 2020. With the several test flights they have performed, the vehicle is now confirmed to be controllable and stable during flight. Following this is additional improvements in technical design.

The goal is to fully operationalize the Japanese Flying Taxi in the market by 2023, ensuring the safety of the consumers. Japanese Flying Taxi is intended to be used as Taxi services in cities, alternative mode of transportation in remote and mountainous areas, as well as means of transportation for emergency situations. The aim is for the group to come up with a Japanese Flying Taxi that is cheap, quiet, compact enough that it can be used on a daily basis and can make flying a routine form of mobility.