During the US President Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung announced that Hyundai is going to invest additional $5 billion in the United States by 2025 on top of the $5.5 billion investment earmarked for an electric vehicle and the accompanying battery manufactuering facilities announced earlier during the week.
The domains of Hyundai’s investment will include robotics, AI technologies, autonomous driving and, more interestingly, advanced air mobility (AAM).
It is no surprise that Hyundai includes AAM in the investment plan. Hyundai has been pursuing AAM development in the US since the beginning of its AAM project. Hyundai set up an urban air mobility (UAM) division in 2019 and revealed its S-A1 eVTOL design concept at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. At Uber Elevate Summit in that same year Hyundai announced a partnership with Uber Elevate, making it the first automotive manufacturer to officially join Uber’s urban air mobility vision. Hyundai’s AAM team include many veterans from the US aerospace industry including the head of the AAM divison and former NASA deputy adminstrator Jaiwon Shin.
In November 2021 Hyundai announced to rename its AAM/UAM division to Supernal headquartered in Washington DC and designated Jaiwon Shin to be the CEO. Supernal targets to launch commercial service of AAM in 2028.
