Hyundai’s electric air taxi startup Supernal suspended work on the aircraft program after staff was cut and a rocky few months after seeing CEO and CTO retire.
The shakeup occurs when Supernall is literally barely off the ground. The technology demonstrator’s first test flight took place earlier this year. And Supernal conducted subsequent tests, but the company was still working towards its first ignored test flight before the pause. The company was scheduled to launch commercial services in 2028.
Supernal announced the departure of CEO Jaiwon Shin late last week. CTO David McBride also left, according to familiar people who were given anonymity to talk about private companies’ issues. The OC register first reported a pause of Supernal’s flight program and McBride’s departure.
Regarding commercial services, the startup told TechCrunch that “newly appointed leadership will assess and determine the optimal timeline to advance.” The company declined to comment on McBride’s departure.
The Supernal struggle is due to the early days of rapid changes in the electric aviation taxi industry. Some startups like Toyota-backed Joby have announced partnerships and acquisitions. Others like Lilium have gone out of business.
Supernal, who was spin-out from the Hyundai Group in 2021, fired dozens of people earlier this summer ahead of the executive shakeup. As TechCrunch previously reported, it followed a startup that suddenly involved a new Washington DC headquarters late last year.
David Rottblatt, Senior Business Development Director at Supernal, oversees “Supernal’s business operations as interim COO during this transition.” According to a press release on Singh’s departure, the larger Hyundai Group is “planning to appoint new leadership with deep business operations expertise to advance urban air mobility (UAM) solutions and guide the organization to its next stage of growth.”
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That first test flight was promoted for many years by the current CEO. At the 2024 Consucter Electronics show (where the company showed off a bigger, less-flying concept vehicle), Shin spoke about how Supernal is mostly ready to “push the limits of technology with a demonstrator.” And in August 2024, McBride told Vertical MAG that the test flight “will verify its ability to build aircraft” ahead of its 2028 commercial launch.
This is the second futuristic startup under the Hyundai umbrella that has encountered trouble in recent years. In 2024, the Korean conglomerate had to double its autonomous vehicle startup Motional after backing partner APTIV decided to stop halting joint venture funding. The result was a major restructuring late last year with about 40% layoffs of staff and the final departure of CEO Carl Aignema.
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