Supernal unveils the interior cabin of its eVTOL aircraft for first time at Farnborough Air Show

Super­nal has revealed the inte­ri­or cab­in con­cept of its eVTOL air­craft for the first time at this week’s Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, giv­ing atten­dees the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see how Hyundai Motor Group will inte­grate auto­mo­tive capa­bil­i­ties to devel­op the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) mar­ket.

Super­nal part­nered with the Group’s design stu­dios to cre­ate the cab­in con­cept as the Com­pa­ny works to cer­ti­fy its eVTOL vehi­cle for com­mer­cial use in the Unit­ed States start­ing in 2028 – and in the E.U. and UK short­ly after.

Super­nal’s eVTOL vehi­cle cab­in con­cept is on dis­play at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show (Exhib­it Hall 1, Booth 1307).

Beyond the vehi­cle, Super­nal is col­lab­o­rat­ing with exter­nal part­ners and the Group’s more than 50 affil­i­ates – which span auto­mo­biles, auto­mo­tive parts, con­struc­tion, robot­ics and autonomous dri­ving – to respon­si­bly co-cre­ate the expan­sive AAM val­ue chain.

Jai­won Shin, Pres­i­dent of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Super­nal, said: “In order for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty to become a wide-spread mode of trans­porta­tion, every detail – from the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence to reg­u­la­tions and infra­struc­ture – needs to be addressed from the start and work in lock­step with one anoth­er.

“Lever­ag­ing Hyundai Motor Group’s mobil­i­ty capa­bil­i­ties, Super­nal is invest­ing time and resources upfront to ensure the indus­try can scale to the mass­es in the com­ing decades and reach its excit­ing poten­tial.”

Har­ness­ing Auto­mo­tive Design

Super­nal’s five-seat cab­in con­cept pro­vides clues to how the Com­pa­ny is har­ness­ing auto­mo­tive design process­es and mate­ri­als – while meet­ing com­mer­cial avi­a­tion’s high­est safe­ty stan­dards – to opti­mise the AAM pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence and price-point. The design embod­ies bio­mimicry phi­los­o­phy – a but­ter­fly in this case – and the Com­pa­ny’s pil­lars of safe­ty above all, human-cen­tred design and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Shin added: “Super­nal is part­ner­ing with Hyundai Motor Group’s top auto­mo­tive design­ers to devel­op our eVTOL vehi­cle for man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and wide­spread pub­lic accep­tance. We are tak­ing the time to cre­ate a safe, light-weight com­mer­cial eVTOL that pro­vides our future pas­sen­gers with the secu­ri­ty and com­fort they find in their own cars.”

The team of engi­neers and design­ers utilised the auto­mo­tive indus­try’s reduc­tive design approach to cre­ate the light­weight inte­ri­or cab­in, which is made of forged car­bon fibre. Ergonom­i­cal­ly con­toured seats offer a cocoon-like envi­ron­ment for pas­sen­gers. Deploy­able seat con­soles mim­ic auto­mo­bile cen­tre con­soles and pro­vide a charg­ing sta­tion and stowage com­part­ment for per­son­al items.

Grab han­dles built into the cab­in doors and seat­backs assist with ingress and egress. A com­bi­na­tion of light­ing – includ­ing over­head lights inspired by auto­mo­bile sun­roofs – adjusts with the var­i­ous stages of flight to emu­late a ‘light ther­a­py’ effect. The cab­in lay­out draws on auto­mo­tive space inno­va­tion with a min­imised bulk­head, which allows for gen­er­ous head­room and pack­age func­tion­al­i­ties.

With sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a pri­or­i­ty, the cab­in con­cept incor­po­rates mate­ri­als such as advanced recy­clable car­bon fiber rein­forced ther­mo­plas­tic, durable plant-based leather, recy­cled plas­tic fab­ric and respon­si­bly sourced woods. The seat frame also uti­lizes excess raw mate­r­i­al from the air­frame man­u­fac­tur­ing process.

Luc Don­ck­er­wolke, Chief Cre­ative Offi­cer of Hyundai Motor Group, said: “The Super­nal eVTOL vehi­cle draws on the com­pe­tence of the Hyundai Motor Group and the skillset of expe­ri­enced auto­mo­tive design­ers, which allowed us to devel­op a new air mobil­i­ty con­cept that is not only safe and ratio­nal but also high­ly emo­tion­al.”

Devel­op­ing Air Mobil­i­ty Beyond Urban Mar­kets

The Group is lever­ag­ing its expan­sive mobil­i­ty and mobil­i­ty-enabling capa­bil­i­ties to devel­op a fam­i­ly of elec­tric air vehi­cles, as well as the sur­round­ing val­ue chain.

Com­ple­ment­ing U.S.-based Super­nal’s bat­tery-pow­ered eVTOL vehi­cle designed for intra-city pas­sen­ger jour­neys start­ing in 2028, the Group’s Korea-based divi­sion (the Divi­sion) focused on Region­al Air Mobil­i­ty is devel­op­ing a hydro­gen-pow­ered mid-sized vehi­cle for region­al – city-to-city – car­go and pas­sen­ger jour­neys. The Divi­sion plans to launch ser­vice of its hydro­gen vehi­cle in the 2030s.

Super­nal and the Divi­sion are part­ner­ing with the Group’s man­u­fac­tur­ing inno­va­tion teams across the globe to cre­ate a robust high-rate, high-qual­i­ty AAM man­u­fac­tur­ing process that will pro­duce elec­tric air vehi­cles at scale – at an increas­ing­ly afford­able price-point – over the com­ing decades.

“Hyundai Motor Group is work­ing to lever­age syn­er­gies between auto­mo­tive’s high-rate man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties and aero­space’s high cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards to build the foun­da­tion for every­day use of pas­sen­ger and car­go air vehi­cles,” Shin said.