Supernal opens new R&D site in California, the company’s third facility opening this year

Super­nal has opened its pri­ma­ry R&D facil­i­ty in Fre­mont, Cal­i­for­nia, mark­ing the third site to open this year, fol­low­ing announce­ments of its engi­neer­ing head­quar­ters in Irvine, Cal­i­for­nia, and a pol­i­cy and com­mer­cial hub in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Pri­mar­i­ly focused on AAM R&D, the com­pa­ny select­ed Fre­mont due to its prox­im­i­ty to Sil­i­con Val­ley. The Company’s 72,000-square-foot facil­i­ty, locat­ed in the Scott Creek Busi­ness Park, serves as a home base to more than 100 employ­ees across its bat­tery, intel­li­gent sys­tems, auton­o­my and core oper­a­tions teams. 

“Bat­ter­ies are the linch­pin of AAM and crit­i­cal to pow­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of flight, which we see as every­day elec­tric air trav­el,” said Jai­won Shin, pres­i­dent of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Super­nal. 

“With its vibrant tech ecosys­tem, Fre­mont offers a robust tal­ent pool that will enable Super­nal to con­tin­ue advanc­ing the pow­er and ener­gy capa­bil­i­ties of safe avi­a­tion-grade bat­ter­ies.”

Estab­lished in 2020 as the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group, Super­nal plans to hire more than 20 employ­ees with expe­ri­ence in auton­o­my, bat­tery devel­op­ment and intel­li­gent sys­tems in Fre­mont this year, to devel­op light­weight and pow­er­ful bat­ter­ies to meet com­mer­cial aviation’s high safe­ty stan­dards. 

The facility’s diverse work­spaces have been planned to accom­mo­date the pref­er­ences of work­forces, offer­ing var­i­ous work and inter­ac­tion options from spaces for unplanned inter­ac­tions to an envi­ron­ment that fos­ters a vis­i­ble cul­ture of health and well-being, every design fea­ture serves a clear pur­pose. 

Areas of respite and a bal­anced mix of indi­vid­ual and col­lab­o­ra­tive spaces under­line the company’s ded­i­ca­tion to both cre­ativ­i­ty and effi­cien­cy. Ameni­ties, such as a gym, rest pods, EV charg­ing sta­tions and med­i­ta­tion rooms, are com­ple­ment­ed by panoram­ic moun­tain views and the inclu­sion of green­ery and plants through­out, bring­ing nature into the space. 

The Company’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty is fur­ther demon­strat­ed through green ini­tia­tives, such as a micro­grid to cap­ture and recy­cle ener­gy. Supernal’s office space was designed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with two San-Fran­cis­co-based design firms, RMW Archi­tec­tures and Inte­ri­ors, and Stu­dio O+A. 

Last month, Super­nal opened its pol­i­cy and com­mer­cial hub in Wash­ing­ton DC at a 28,000 square foot off­ice, which will include a 5,000 square foot inno­va­tion cen­tre when con­struc­tion is com­plet­ed lat­er this year.