Rolls-Royce and Hyundai collaborate on all-electric propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell technology

Rolls-Royce and Hyundai are to col­lab­o­rate on bring­ing all-elec­tric propul­sion and hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy to the advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) mar­ket, lever­ag­ing Rolls-Royce’s avi­a­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion capa­bil­i­ties and Hyundai’s hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nolo­gies.

Both com­pa­nies share a vision of deliv­er­ing bat­tery-elec­tric and fuel cell elec­tric solu­tions to the urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) and region­al air mobil­i­ty (RAM) mar­kets, hav­ing signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with five strate­gic aims:
1. Col­lab­o­rat­ing on the tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and require­ments of pow­er and propul­sion sys­tems
2. Col­lab­o­rat­ing on the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Rolls-Royce pow­er and propul­sion sys­tems
3. Devel­op­ing elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems based on hydro­gen fuel cells as an ener­gy source
4. Col­lab­o­rat­ing to bring to mar­ket a joint fuel-cell elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem to the wider AAM mar­ket
5. Deliv­er­ing a joint fuel-cell elec­tric air­craft demon­stra­tion by 2025

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny took place at Hyundai Supernal’s booth at the Farn­bor­ough Air­show 2022. Hyundai Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion pres­i­dent Jai­won Shin said: “We are pleased to draw on Rolls-Royce’s avi­a­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exper­tise to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of hydro­gen fuel-cell propul­sion sys­tems.

“Hyundai has suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems to the glob­al auto­mo­tive mar­ket and is now explor­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of aero­space inte­gra­tion to sup­port the glob­al avi­a­tion industry’s goal to fly net zero car­bon by 2050.”

Rolls-Royce Elec­tri­cal pres­i­dent Rob Wat­son said: “Hyundai pro­vides a valu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to lever­age the capa­bil­i­ties each com­pa­ny brings from the aero­space and auto­mo­tive sec­tors.

“The AAM Mar­ket offers great com­mer­cial poten­tial, and this is also anoth­er demon­stra­tion of Rolls-Royce’s role in deliv­er­ing the solu­tions that will enable pas­sen­gers to trav­el sus­tain­ably and help deliv­er net zero car­bon by 2050.”

The ben­e­fits of using a hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem is a zero-emis­sion, silent and reli­able on-board pow­er source that enables scal­a­bil­i­ty and a long dis­tance flight range.

Hyundai will work with Rolls-Royce to bring hydro­gen fuel cells, stor­age sys­tems and infra­struc­ture to the aero­space mar­kets, and advance this tech­nol­o­gy into Hyundai’s RAM Vehi­cles and Rolls-Royce all-elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem offer­ings.

Last year, Rolls-Royce announced a path­way to net zero car­bon emis­sions to help decar­bonise the glob­al econ­o­my. Hyundai’s US-based Super­nal unit is aim­ing to begin com­mer­cial UAM ser­vices in 2028 while Hyundai Motor Group plans to launch RAM ser­vices in the 2030s.

Last month, Rolls-Royce announced it would devel­op a new small engine for hybrid-elec­tric appli­ca­tions, using an on-board pow­er source with scal­able pow­er.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Urban-Air Port announced plans with the UAM Divi­sion of Hyundai to devel­op 65 elec­tric urban-air ports world­wide for autonomous air­borne drones and eVTOL air­craft.