CES 2024: Supernal’s Visionary eVTOL Concept, S-A2
Up close on the pilot-plus-four-passenger electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle from Hyundai Motor Group’s Advanced Air Mobility company
Debuting at CES 2024, the S-A2 is the latest concept from Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vertical take off and landing vehicle division, Supernal, as it prepares to enter the commercial market in 2028. This pilot-plus-four-passenger aircraft follow’s Supernal’s S-A1 (which was unveiled at CES 2020) and represents a substantial advancement in both design and technology. With the S-A2, Supernal’s mission—to guide us into a world where everyday passenger air travel is efficient, affordable and safe—comes into greater focus.
This isn’ just a concept—it’s a holistic plan for a future predicated on aerospace meets automotive. S-A2 is designed with eight all-tilting rotors to cruise at 1,500 feet, traveling at 120 miles per hour for 25 to 40 miles at a time. It’s also quiet—doing so at 45 dB when horizontal, and 65 during vertical takeoff. Where is such a vehicle necessary? Supernal foresees an eVTOL as most beneficial in urban centers, traversing routes defined by user need.
Beside the SA-2 concept, on Supernal’s “vertiport” at the Las Vegan Convention Center, Luc Donckerwolke (president, chief design officer and chief creative officer of Hyundai Motor Group) describes the earliest beginnings of the S-A2 to us. “We started this at the end of 2020, and the beginning of 2021,” he shares. “We were in full lockdown when I asked three studios to work in competition to get them out of their comfort zone. We were doing this without seeing each other—only in video conferences and we were working with engineers that had not worked together before. They were coming from NASA, Boeing, Airbus. We did 195 design proposals and then we narrowed them down. We brainstormed—thinking about all possible scenarios. We didn’t know if it would get somewhere. We were all learning.”
During development, there was no small model. “We went directly from data to realizing this,” Donckerwolke continues, motioning toward the S-A2. “We started in Germany, with one of the suppliers that I’ve work with for 30 years. We did not finish it over there. We finished the parts, packaged them and then shipped them. When they arrived here, we assembled it for the first time. Imagine the effort of doing something so immense and not being certain that it would work or even fit together until the very last second. But now this is something that we can utilize for the delivery and the logistics behind it.”
The designers were integral to imagining the successful final product. It was a radical utilization of their skill sets. “I took them away from cars to design this,” Donckerwolke says. “After, I expect them to have a freedom of mind from the typical things that we tend to repeat and repeat and repeat in car design. We have opened the creative mindset and broadened perspective. The horizon is wider now. There’s no such thing as car design anymore. The future is mobility. The future is challenging everything.”
The S-A2 features a minimal design that uses color to telegraph functionality. The cabin is a microcosm of the entire concept—and the finishing represents the sheer amount of effort. “Before it was like this cabin was always a frustration,” he says. “Now this thing has its own life.” Multiple redundancies have been built into the design for safety—from rotor balance offsets (if one were to stop) and numerous power sources.
“Next, it’s going to go to the Irvine Development Center,” Donckerwolke adds. “And then it’s going to go to Farnborough—and it might go somewhere else—but it’s basically now going to be with the engineers in the Irvine center and that’s going to invest in next steps.” Supernal is working in partnership with the FAA. This year, they’re submitting an application for certification of the S-A2. Next year, they intend to have a prototype—and in 2026 and 2027 pre-production vehicles will be tested. After 2028, if all goes according to plan, there might just an abundance of eVTOLS flying over many cities around the world—perhaps with private ownership down the line too.
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