“Supernal to Change Leadership”

Hyundai Motor Group, own­er of the Super­nal S‑A2 eVTOL air­craft, announced this week a change of lead­er­ship at the com­pa­ny, reports a press release.

Dr. Jai­won Shin, CEO of Super­nal and Head of Hyundai’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion, will step down from his roles effec­tive from August 31st. He will then become an advi­sor to the Group.

The release explains, “As Super­nal tran­si­tions from ear­ly-stage R&D to the next phase of devel­op­ment and busi­ness mod­el oper­a­tion, the Group is imple­ment­ing a strate­gic lead­er­ship change to align with the evolv­ing needs of the busi­ness.”

Dr. Shin joined Hyundai in 2019 to lead its AAM busi­ness and was appoint­ed CEO of Super­nal upon its estab­lish­ment in the U.S two years lat­er. Under his lead­er­ship, “The Group estab­lished the ground­work for future avi­a­tion mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies through an inte­grat­ed devel­op­ment approach,” con­tin­ues the release.

This tran­si­tion reflects a more sharp­ened focus on busi­ness and oper­a­tional devel­op­ment. While the AAM indus­try con­tin­ues to face exter­nal chal­lenges, includ­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment and ecosys­tem matu­ri­ty, Hyundai remains con­fi­dent in the long-term poten­tial of AAM and will con­tin­ue invest­ing in build­ing a sus­tain­able busi­ness. 

David Rot­tblatt, the new Super­nal inter­im COO

David Rot­tblatt, a Senior Direc­tor at Hyundai and the for­mer VP of busi­ness devel­op­ment at Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, is to over­see oper­a­tions of Super­nal dur­ing this tran­si­tion as Inter­im COO, while the Group plans to appoint new lead­er­ship to guide the organ­i­sa­tion into its next phase of growth.

The news has caused some con­tro­ver­sy with­in the eVTOL Indus­try. Is this a sign that Hyundai may be los­ing inter­est with the eVTOL indus­try?

theaircurrent.com writes, “Super­nal is appar­ent­ly nowhere close to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the SA‑2 air taxi. The com­pa­ny has yet to fly a rep­re­sen­ta­tive full-scale pro­to­type of its eVTOL design, despite Hyundai hav­ing sunk more than USD1.5 bil­lion into the sub­sidiary, mul­ti­ple peo­ple famil­iar with the company’s finances told TAC…”

Watch this space. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.supernal.aero

(Top image: Super­nal S‑A2 eVTOL con­cept)

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