Japanese electric scooter startup is now making drones

Japanese electric vehicle company Terra Motors announced today that it is expanding into drones for mapping construction sites.

Terra Motors founds new company Terra Drone.

“We have found product-market fit,” says founder and CEO Toru Tokushige. He explains to Tech in Asia that Terra Motors already has 15 percent of the two and three-wheeler electric vehicle market in India with 1,000 sold monthly. Sales in Vietnam have been strong as well. After thinking about the company’s next step, Toru decided on drones. “I researched AR, VR, big data, many things,” he says, “I believe this [drone] market will grow quickly like the PC market.”

Terra Motors will not sell the drones directly to consumers. Rather, it will offer the drones as a service to construction companies. Using an EV motor, battery, and controls technology developed in-house, Terra’s drones can take measurements accurate up to five centimeters. Toru says that this is the minimum needed to even be considered as a solution in the construction industry.

Close up of one of the drones revealed.

Photographs are used to map locations, but Terra Motors hopes to add more sensors in the future. Toru states that Terra drones can complete measurements in one-tenth the time and one-fifth the cost of current “total station” laser technology.

Drones are already being used in agriculture to help farmers map locations and identify sick crops. China’s top drone company, DJI, sells consumer and industrial drones, including a huge one for dusting crops. Volvo has sponsored research using drones and robots to pick up garbage.

There are many players in the space and Terra Motors will need to compete with other drone mapping companies like 3dr. Toru does not seem to be worried, saying, “There are no strong companies […] there are a few companies, but they haven’t done anything yet. They just raised money.”