CES 2024: Supernal Unveils “Magnificent-Looking eVTOL S‑A2 Concept”

A very excit­ing moment took place at CES (Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics Show) on Tues­day when Hyundai Motor Group’s (HMG) AAM com­pa­ny unveiled its Super­nal S‑A2 eVTOL Air­craft con­cept to the pub­lic, reports a press release. “The pilot-plus-four-pas­sen­ger vehi­cle marks the lat­est mile­stone in Supernal’s roadmap to com­mer­cialise safe, effi­cient and afford­able every­day pas­sen­ger air trav­el,” explains the release. S‑A2 builds on the company’s orig­i­nal vision con­cept, S‑A1, which also debuted at CES in 2020.

The release con­tin­ues, “S‑A2 is a V‑tail air­craft designed to cruise 120 miles-per-hour at a 1,500-foot alti­tude to meet typ­i­cal city oper­a­tion needs of 25 to 40 mile trips, ini­tial­ly. It fea­tures a dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion archi­tec­ture and has eight all-tilt­ing rotors. At entry into ser­vice, Supernal’s vehi­cle will oper­ate as qui­et­ly as a dish­wash­er: 65 dB in ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing phas­es and 45 dB while cruis­ing hor­i­zon­tal­ly.”

It explains that the Air­craft “is designed with a pri­or­i­ty on safe­ty and a focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and pas­sen­ger com­fort and has a robust air­frame struc­ture includ­ing redun­dant com­po­nents in crit­i­cal sys­tems such as pow­er­train, flight con­trols and avion­ics.”

The release goes on, “The all-tilt­ing rotor con­fig­u­ra­tion will pow­er the vehi­cle through both the ver­ti­cal-lift and hor­i­zon­tal-cruise phas­es of flight with unique effi­cien­cy. To main­tain supe­ri­or qual­i­ty while also being cost-effec­tive, the vehi­cle will be man­u­fac­tured lever­ag­ing Hyundai’s mass pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ty.”

Jai­won Shin, Pres­i­dent of HMG and CEO of Super­nal, com­ment­ed, “From the begin­ning, Super­nal has been on a mis­sion to cre­ate the right prod­uct and the right mar­ket at the right time. The unveil­ing of S‑A2 demon­strates our unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to deliv­er on that mis­sion with a safe, effi­cient vehi­cle design that pro­vides a clear path to mar­ket entry. By lever­ag­ing our tal­ent­ed 600-per­son team, the vast tech­ni­cal and busi­ness capa­bil­i­ties of Hyundai Motor Group and trust­ed avi­a­tion sup­pli­ers around the world, Super­nal is ready to deliv­er a new era of flight.”

Ben Diachun, CTO of Super­nal, added, “Supernal’s prod­uct con­cept vehi­cle is the result of the cre­ativ­i­ty and hard work of our world-class team. S‑A2 is designed to take full advan­tage of emerg­ing elec­tric pow­er­train advance­ments that will define the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion. From here, we will devel­op this con­cept into a rev­o­lu­tion­ary com­mer­cial prod­uct.”

(From left) Ben Diachun, chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer of Super­nal; Shin Jai-Won, CEO of Super­nal; and Luc Don­ck­er­wolke, chief design offi­cer of Hyundai Motor Group, stand before the new­ly revealed S‑A2 eVTOL air­craft at the CES 2024 in Las Vegas on Tues­day. (Hyundai Motor Group)

As Super­nal con­tin­ues to improve its Air­craft towards even­tu­al Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the com­pa­ny is par­tic­u­lar­ly focused on inte­ri­or mod­u­lar­i­ty and bat­tery upgrad­abil­i­ty. This includes the abil­i­ty to replace the bat­tery mod­ule as tech­nol­o­gy advances. Aes­thet­i­cal­ly some sug­gest the S‑A2 is sim­i­lar-look­ing to Archer’s Mid­night, designed by Julien Mon­tousse and his cre­ative team. Per­haps, Oscar Wilde’s famous say­ing, “Imi­ta­tion is the sin­cer­est form of flat­tery,” holds a cer­tain ring?

Supernal’s engi­neer­ing teams col­lab­o­rat­ed with HMG auto­mo­tive design­ers on the craft’s aes­thet­ics, blend­ing design with func­tion­al­i­ty, to attract avi­a­tion oper­a­tors and cre­ate a pre­ferred AAM pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence. The release says, “Dif­fer­ent colour palettes and mate­ri­als delin­eate dis­tinct pilot and pas­sen­ger sec­tions of the vehi­cle. Avi­a­tion-grade, ener­gy-absorb­ing com­po­nents are inte­grat­ed into the seat frames, and con­tribute to the over­all clean, min­i­mal­ist design. Light­ing tran­si­tions through­out phas­es of flight allow the cab­in to feel larg­er and to pro­vide visu­al cues, such as where to enter and exit the vehi­cle.”

Luc Don­ck­er­wolke, Pres­i­dent, Chief Design Offi­cer and Chief Cre­ative Offi­cer of HMG remarked, “S‑A2 is a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of ‘auto meets aero.’ Draw­ing on the com­pe­tence of Supernal’s top aero­space engi­neers and Hyundai Motor Group’s world-renowned auto­mo­tive design­ers to cre­ate human-cen­tric design that max­imis­es pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence and safe­ty.” 

Draw­ing on HMG’s expe­ri­ence of design­ing smart cars with sim­i­lar effi­cient foot­prints and recent award-win­ning elec­tric vehi­cles, the company’s design­ers also incor­po­rat­ed the lat­est in pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence and auto­mo­tive design best-prac­tices into S‑A2.

Super­nal engi­neers part­nered with Hyundai Motor Group’s auto­mo­tive design­ers on S‑A2’s aes­thet­ics

This mag­nif­i­cent-look­ing air­craft is on dis­play with­in the Super­nal Ver­ti­port exhi­bi­tion at CES 2024 locat­ed in the Dia­mond park­ing lot next to the West Hall of the Las Vegas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre. The future “trans­porta­tion hub” brings togeth­er Supernal’s vision for AAM, plac­ing S‑A2 in an oper­a­tional set­ting. Atten­dees have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see the vehi­cle prod­uct con­cept; take a sim­u­lat­ed flight above the city of Los Ange­les; learn about poten­tial flight net­works and the tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port them; as well as under­stand how ver­ti­ports and oth­er trans­porta­tion modes will cre­ate quick­er and eas­i­er met­ro­pol­i­tan jour­neys.

The release points out, “Com­bined with air traf­fic con­trol improve­ments and advanced micro-weath­er fore­cast­ing, S‑A2 and ver­ti­ports will facil­i­tate mobil­i­ty far beyond what exist­ing and pro­ject­ed ground infra­struc­ture can deliv­er.”

Super­nal aims to enter the com­mer­cial eVTOL mar­ket in 2028.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.supernal.aero/newsroom/

(Images: Cred­it — Super­nal)