SkyDrive SD-03 vs. XPeng X1

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — While it is North American and European eVTOLs that receive the lion’s share of attention from the English-language media, the Japanese industry should not be neglecting developments in neighboring China.

Part of the reason for this is that Chinese eVTOL makers are struggling with many of the same challenges, including how to make their vehicles fit for Asian cities where the available spaces are often much narrower. The need for compact designs thus becomes doubly important.

SkyDrive CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa has explained repeatedly that his firm is aiming to build the world’s smallest eVTOLs for just this reason.

“As our product is very small, it can land on almost any building in the Tokyo area, or gasoline stations or convenience store parking lots,” Fukuzawa told a press conference in Tokyo last September. “Especially in Japan and Asian countries, the SkyDrive type will be more affordable.”

If so, Fukuzawa had better pay attention to the Chinese market, where eVTOL makers seem to have precisely the same idea.

There are a number of Chinese companies jumping into eVTOL development, with EHang being the best known, having listed on New York’s NASDAQ stock exchange, and conducting some test flight tests in Japan itself.

But for the purposes of this article, it is HT Aero, a unit of XPeng Motors, that we will examine more closely.

The main reason for this choice is the striking similarity in form between the SkyDrive SD-03 and the XPeng X1, both of them one-seater eVTOLs.

The SD-03’s world debut came in August 2020 with a manned flight over the Toyota Test Field. The vehicle took off from the concrete surface and glided gently around the facility for about four minutes. Twenty months later, that event remains the only available footage of the vehicle in action.

For its part, the XPeng X1 was first unveiled at the Auto Shanghai trade show in April 2021. It is clearly in the same class as the SD-03, with an almost identical configuration of an open cockpit, eight propellers, and fixed skid type landing gear.

However, in the intervening year, XPeng appears to be developing its eVTOL technology at a quicker pace than SkyDrive. The Chinese firm’s two-seater, the X2, was presented at the Chengdu Auto Show last August, while it seems that SkyDrive does not intend to unveil its SD-05 two-seater until 2024 or early 2025.

Meanwhile, XPeng has been releasing video footage of the X1 flying across the Pearl River and over stunning beach settings, giving the clear impression that their eVTOL technology is already superior to anything that has been developed domestically within Japan.

Of course, the XPeng mother company is no longer a small startup like SkyDrive, but a listed electric vehicle manufacturer that had nearly US$3.3 billion in revenues recorded last year.

XPeng has other advantages as well, such as the much larger domestic market in China and a less safety-obsessed business culture. At present, China seems to possess an unmatched commitment to rapid technological development.

So while Fukuzawa may be correct that there is a big market in Asia for compact multicopter-style eVTOLs, it looks more likely to be Chinese—not Japanese—firms that are poised to capture the largest share.