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While this CES has been a more subdued affair in the on-road electric vehicle space—with Ford, General Motors, Toyota, and Stellantis all not exhibiting at the show—2024 seems to be a year of companies once again trying their darnedest to make flying cars happen.
Electric vertical takeoff and landing craft, or eVTOLs, for superfast urban mobility seem to be perennially just a few years or so away, but Hyundai’s air mobility division, Supernal, is seemingly making a concerted play to make this mode of transport a reality.
Supernal’s final product concept of its eVTOL, the S-A2, is an all-electric, pilot-plus-four-passenger vehicle designed to supposedly offer safe, efficient, and, yes, affordable everyday passenger air travel.
Building on Supernal’s first concept from CES 2020, the S-A1, this new S-A2 is intended to cruise at speeds of up to 120 mph at 1,500 feet, whisking up to four passengers briskly over distances of 25 to 40 miles at a time. Eight tilting rotors supply the ability for vertical flight. On takeoff, the front four point skyward while the back four face downward. Then, for “normal flight,” they all pivot horizontally.
However, the real boon is the promise from Supernal that, at entry into service, the S-A2 will supposedly operate as quietly as a dishwasher: 65 dB in vertical takeoff and landing phases and 45 dB while cruising horizontally.
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The design of the SA-2 is striking, and with reason. Luc Donckerwolke, the president, chief design officer, and chief creative officer of Hyundai Motor Group, gave WIRED a tour of the interior. (The brand hosted WIRED at its media event at CES and paid for a portion of our reporter’s travel expense.) On the tour, Donckerwolke revealed that the placing of the glazing on the fuselage was modeled on specific biological entities: insects.
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“The DLO—daylight opening—design [of the glass] is trying to allow as much visibility as possible. When you are flying in an airplane, you look forward. When you fly in a helicopter or VTOL, you look down to see where you are landing—the passengers as well as the pilot," said Donckerwolke. "Biomimicry was important here.”
Donckerwolke and his team came up with a solution that drew upon inspiration from bees, and then based the window placement and design for the SA-2 on the heads of bees. “Then we exaggerated it dynamically, as if the bee’s head had been morphed by speed.”
Generative design was also used to create the seat frames to make sure as little metal as possible was used, thus reducing weight and giving the seats energy-absorbing properties to disperse forces exerted from vertical takeoff and landing.
Behind the cabin, eight separate battery units are housed in the rear of the fuselage. These units are separated for safety: In case one battery unit stops operating, the others are able to continue powering the vehicle. Indeed, Supernal wants to hit commercial aviation safety levels for the SA-2, meaning that, among other stipulations, in case of failure the aircraft will have redundant components built into not only the powertrain, but also the flight controls and avionics. Apparently the SA-2 does not require that all eight propellors work in order for it to fly, either.
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Next, Donckerwolke wants to work on the light signature of the SA-2. He has a background in car design and wants people to recognize the Supernal eVTOL in the air by its light signature, much like auto designers try to do with car light cluster forms. “S-A2 is a true representation of ‘auto meets aero,’” he says.
No details are available yet on battery capacity or charging rates—crucial stats for short-trip electric aviation—but Jaiwon Shin, president of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Supernal, has stated that Supernal might prefer a high-voltage, fast-charging system. Such a system does not have to be charged between each flight—only after four or five flights, or even overnight.
“From the beginning, Supernal has been on a mission to create the right product and the right market at the right time,” said Shin in a press statement at CES. “Supernal is ready to deliver a new era of flight.” Well, not quite ready—although test flights of the SA-2 are expected to happen at the end of this year, the company states that it’s not going to properly enter the urban air mobility market until 2028.
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Supernal was far from the only company to show off versions of flying cars at CES this year. Xpeng’s AeroHT division has revealed what it calls a “land aircraft carrier,” a modular flying car that will be available to preorder at the end of this year. The two-part design lets the user switch between land and aerial modes.
Xpeng’s three-axle, six-wheel hybrid “ground module” has all-wheel drive, rear-wheel steering, and space for four or five passengers. Its electrified powertrain will apparently be able to feed power back into the air module, providing it with “multiple recharges.” The air module is a two-person, fully electric VTOL with both manual and automatic driving modes.
Pivotal has also shown off its new Helix, which boasts a starting price of $190,000 in the US for the single-seat, all-electric personal aircraft that the company says requires no pilot certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. Shipments begin in June. The transportable machine (it fits into a 16-foot trailer) can go from storage to sky in 30 minutes. Range is 20 miles from the 8 kilowatt-hour battery, which can max charge from 20 to 100 percent in 75 minutes. Cruising speed is 63 mph. And if the worst should happen, the Helix can manage without one of its eight fixed rotors. Plus, thoughtfully, there’s a ballistic parachute on board, too.
