Hyundai Motor Group Signs MoU with Korea Aerospace Industries, with Supernal to jointly develop new electric AAM aircraft

Hyundai Motor Group and Korea Aero­space Indus­tries (KAI) have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) to focus on the joint devel­op­ment of AAM air­craft, based on elec­tri­fied avi­a­tion pow­er­trains.

Under the agree­ment, the two par­ties will lever­age Hyundai Motor Group’s exper­tise in elec­tri­fied avi­a­tion pow­er­train devel­op­ment and KAI’s air­craft air­frame devel­op­ment capa­bil­i­ties to joint­ly devel­op and mass pro­duce com­pet­i­tive future air mobil­i­ty air­craft. 

Super­nal, Hyundai Motor Group’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty affil­i­ate, and KAI, will joint­ly devel­op the AAM air­craft. Sep­a­rate­ly, Hyundai Motor Group and KAI will col­lab­o­rate on the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of elec­tri­fied avi­a­tion pow­er­trains being devel­oped by Hyundai Motor Group’s Avi­a­tion Pow­er­train Sub-Divi­sion.

In addi­tion, the two com­pa­nies plan to iden­ti­fy new areas of coop­er­a­tion across the broad­er avi­a­tion indus­try and fur­ther expand their col­lab­o­ra­tion.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion extends beyond the shar­ing of tech­no­log­i­cal and human resources to include broad coop­er­a­tion across sup­ply chains, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es, and glob­al cus­tomer net­works. 

Gang Hyun Seo, Pres­i­dent and Head of Cor­po­rate Plan­ning Office of Hyundai Motor Group, said: “Our part­ner­ship with Korea Aero­space Indus­tries, a leader in Korea’s aero­space indus­try, rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in our efforts to devel­op future air mobil­i­ty solu­tions. By intro­duc­ing safe and effi­cient Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty offer­ings, we aim to expand the bound­aries of mobil­i­ty into the skies.”

Ear­li­er this month, Super­nal appoint­ed Dr. Farhan Gand­hi as the company’s new Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer (CTO). With more than 30 years of lead­er­ship in rotor­craft research, Gand­hi brings a dis­tin­guished back­ground in ver­ti­cal lift vehi­cle tech­nolo­gies and is expect­ed to play a piv­otal role in Supernal’s next phase of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment. 

Since its estab­lish­ment in 1999, KAI has played a cen­tral role in the devel­op­ment of South Korea’s aero­space indus­try, deliv­er­ing key plat­forms such as the KT‑1 basic train­er air­craft and the Song­gol­mae (RQ-101) unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle. The com­pa­ny is also expand­ing its busi­ness into the civil­ian air mobil­i­ty sec­tor, rein­forc­ing its lead­er­ship in Korea’s aero­space indus­try. 

Jong-chool Kim, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Korea Aero­space Indus­tries, added: “By com­bin­ing Korea Aero­space Indus­tries’ inte­grat­ed capa­bil­i­ties in fixed-wing and rotor­craft sys­tems with Hyundai Motor Group’s large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing exper­tise and com­pre­hen­sive mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem, we expect to devel­op K‑AAM solu­tions capa­ble of com­pet­ing at the glob­al lev­el.

“This col­lab­o­ra­tion marks an impor­tant mile­stone in our ambi­tion to emerge as a game chang­er in the glob­al civil­ian mobil­i­ty mar­ket and to con­tribute to Korea’s rise as a lead­ing aero­space nation.” – Jong-chool Kim, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Korea Aero­space Indus­tries.