Electric vehicles are everywhere at CES 2024, but the new one on display from Hyundai-owned Supernal stands above the rest – or at least it will soon.
The S-A2 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) is seeking approval in 2026, Supernal’s head of manufacturing strategy Neil Marshall told DailyMail.com.
The vehicle seats five: a pilot and four passengers. Once put into service, the S-A2 would be able to move people around the city, avoiding traffic congestion.
Power comes from eight electric rotors, four at the front and four at the rear, all battery-powered. During takeoff, the front ones turn upwards while the rear ones point downwards.
Once the vehicle becomes airborne, all eight of them turn 90 degrees, with the front facing forward and the rear facing back.
The S-A2 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) is seeking approval in 2026
The vehicle seats five: a pilot and four passengers
At that point, the vehicle stops flying like a helicopter and starts flying like a propeller plane.
It is intended to fly at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour for short journeys of 25 to 25 miles.
One of the main factors limiting the vehicle’s range has to do with space and weight. “Battery power is definitely a big deal in this industry,” Marshall said.
Even as battery technology continues to become more advanced, it takes a lot of energy to lift a vehicle vertically and keep it in the air.
And if all that energy comes from batteries, that could mean hundreds or thousands of pounds of batteries.
Add to that the need for extra power for emergencies or unexpected rerouting, and a battery-powered flying machine can only hold enough battery to get so far safely.
Currently available batteries are barely good enough for Supernal’s purposes, Marshall said, but in ten years the available batteries should be sufficient, he said.
Supernal’s CES display showed some examples of journeys customers could take, including from Los Angeles International Airport to downtown Los Angeles – just under 20 miles by road.
In a car the journey would take 1 to 2 hours depending on traffic, but Supernal estimated that the SA-2 would complete the journey in about 43 minutes – including a car journey to and from the ‘vertiport’ at either end.
Once put into service, the S-A2 would be able to move people around the city, avoiding traffic congestion
Power comes from eight electric rotors, four at the front and four at the rear, all battery-powered
Once the vehicle becomes airborne, all eight of them will rotate 90 degrees, with the front facing forward and the rear facing back.
While the company is eager to get the vehicle to market, being the first can have its pitfalls, Marshall said.
Part of that is production. For example, car manufacturers need to make tons of cars efficient enough to sell them at reasonably affordable prices.
If Supernal can build its eVTOLs more efficiently and cheaply, it will be able to build more of them and operate them more cheaply.
In the beginning, the fewer vehicles Supernal has, the more a trip will cost.
So to move the price further away from chartering a helicopter and closer to hailing a taxi, the company will have to build and field more vehicles.
Supernal does not want to share details about how much a trip in the S-A2 will cost.
“Our goal is to get to the cost point where it’s affordable and the masses can use it,” Marshall said. “This is not intended to be solely focused on using wealthy people or managers.”
Supernal’s goal is to have a number of working models in the air in the coming years, with government approval beginning around 2026 and the vehicle eventually being cleared for flight in 2028, Marshall said.
The company’s long-term plan is to create a network of vertiports where eVTOLs can zip in and out.
These vertiports will be located near key destinations such as airports and hospitals, the kind of places people want to get to quickly.
Since you can’t just land an air taxi wherever you want – on the airport runway, or on the hospital roof – the vertiport network would have to be some distance away from these points.
And that, Marshall said, requires solutions for the first and last miles of a passenger’s eVTOL journey.
This is where parent company Hyundai would come into the picture, with customized vehicles transporting passengers to and from Vertiports at each end of the journey, a bit like an airport shuttle.
“At the end of the day, if people want to pay money to take this thing, they’re paying money to save time,” Marshall said.