Supernal and Electric Power Systems Partner to Advance eVTOL Battery Capabilities

Super­nal and Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems (EP Sys­tems) have part­nered to devel­op safe, lighter-weight and cer­ti­fi­able eVTOL vehi­cle bat­ter­ies, hav­ing for­malised an agree­ment at last week’s Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show 2022.

Result­ing in the first vehi­cle part­ner­ship for Super­nal, the aim is to intro­duce com­mer­cial eVTOL vehi­cle flights and sup­port increas­ing enhance­ments to vehi­cle per­for­mance as the advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) mar­ket matures.

Part of Hyundai Motor Group, Super­nal plans to work with­in an ‘open ecosys­tem’ mod­el that will address the niche tech­nol­o­gy needs of AAM.

Hyundai Motor Group pres­i­dent and Super­nal CEO Jai­won Shin said: “Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty requires an expan­sive val­ue chain and many aspects, from bat­tery pow­er to dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture and pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence, require improve­ments and cross-chain inte­gra­tion to enable progress.

“We are excit­ed to work with Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems and devel­op game-chang­ing tech­nolo­gies that will rev­o­lu­tionise air trav­el and increase human pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

Super­nal will con­tin­ue grow­ing its net­work of bat­tery tal­ent and part­ners to dri­ve pow­er, ener­gy, charg­ing time and cycle life improve­ments that will lead to longer, more afford­able eVTOL vehi­cle flights.

Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems pres­i­dent and CEO Nate Mil­le­cam added: “We are pleased to part­ner with Super­nal as it seeks to democ­ra­tise flight and cre­ate a new, sus­tain­able trans­port cat­e­go­ry.

“Supernal’s long-term per­spec­tive and com­pre­hen­sive approach to devel­op­ing the AAM space has enabled it to be viewed as an indus­try thought leader and savvy part­ner of choice.”

EP Sys­tems’ expe­ri­ence has giv­en the com­pa­ny a broad per­spec­tive on the elec­tric evo­lu­tion tak­ing place through­out avi­a­tion, where all-elec­tric air­craft need high-den­si­ty ener­gy stor­age.

Cur­rent EP Sys­tems cus­tomers include NASA, the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion, Boe­ing, Safran, Bell Tex­tron, Dia­mond Air­craft, VoltAero, Aura Aero and Embraer.

Last week, Super­nal revealed the inte­ri­or cab­in con­cept of its eVTOL air­craft for the first time at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, giv­ing atten­dees the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see how Hyundai Motor Group will inte­grate auto­mo­tive capa­bil­i­ties to devel­op the AAM mar­ket.

In June 2021, Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems released its EPiC bat­tery mod­ule dur­ing an eVTOL Writ­ers Group inter­view organ­ised by the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety.