Five on Friday: SkyDrive, ERC and Hydroplane

Congestion-busting is often the big persuader put out by eVTOL companies seeking to convince the fence sitters.

This works for large parts of the world, both in and out of cities, that rely almost solely on road infrastructure for the movement of people and goods. It doesn’t work so well in places like western Europe or Japan because public transport networks are highly efficient and cannot be beaten on cost. (Although living in the UK – the world’s most expensive rail per mile – could convince you otherwise).

But a growing number of railway companies, first in Europe and now in Japan, are seeing the potential value of integrating electric vertical lift aircraft into their networks, and they recently they have begun investing capital to make it happen.

East Japan Railway Company and the Kyushu Railway Company, alongside Suzuki, have backed a pre-Series D funding round worth ¥8.3b ($57m) for Japanese eVTOL developer SkyDrive.

SkyDrive is eager to combine air taxi services with existing railway networks, particularly as connections from large train stations to other parts of the city.

Following the funding announcement, SkyDrive released plans for potential routes it wants to operate with Kyushu Railway from 2028. It also showed a map depicting a route connecting Morioka train station in northern Japan with a nearby hotel resort, which is backed by East Japan Railway.

SkyDrive has previously received investment from Osaka Metro and has been working on a vertiport feasibility study with the rail company since August 2024.

Elsewhere, the first known commitment from a rail company to explore the potential of electric flight came back in 2022 when Dutch rail firm Nederlandse Spoorwegen signed up to the Netherlands’ Power Up initiative focused on electric regional air mobility.

The initiative was formed to explore how best sustainable mobility options can be coordinated to find the “optimum offer” with each modality focusing on those traveller flows for which it is best suited, including electric rail, air and road transport.

Although the $57m pre-Series D raise is a considerable amount of investment, remember it costs about $45-50m per kilometre to construct high-speed rail. So whilst East Japan and Kyushu are not overdelivering with this initial investment, it might mean many rail travellers go the extra mile via SkyDrive in the future.