LAS VEGAS, Nevada—Look up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s… your ride share.
Or at least that’s what Hyundai is hoping with the announcement of an air taxi concept revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) called the S-A2. The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft seats four people and can travel at 120 mph at an altitude of up to 1,500 feet.
The battery allows the craft to operate in 25- to 40-mile trips in urban environments. That’s just enough for a flight from most airports to a downtown area—which is what Hyundai and Supernal, the company’s eVTOL division, is likely aiming for. Hyundai also claimed that the eVTOL will “operate as quietly as a dishwasher” when in use.
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Eight rotors provide the flight for the eVTOL. During takeoff, the four front propellers point upward for lift. During flight, they point forward to provide the thrust for the flight itself.
The S-A2 would require the use of a “vertiport,” which is a giant helipad for the plane. Hyundai bills it as a “transportation hub” that will allow the S-A2 to take off, land, and pick up passengers. The vertiports would also include features such as weather-forecasting tools in order to ensure the S-A2 ferries passengers under ideal conditions.
“The vertiport is a specific landing path for these air mobility vehicles,” Mars Carbonell, a brand ambassador for Supernal, told The Daily Beast. He explained that the landing area is specifically designed for the S-A2, which doesn’t have the skids and wheels that helicopters typically do.
Since the eVTOL is supposedly as quiet as your heavy wash cycle, the S-A2 can theoretically be incorporated into most urban settings and existing transportation infrastructure without disrupting city life below.
Another spokesperson for Supernal told The Daily Beast that they plan to include multiple vertiports throughout a city. This would allow eVTOL travel between the different hubs—not just to an airport. The vertiports would essentially act as a much speedier, aerial, and a bit terrifying bus stop.
But the real question remains: How realistic is this? It’s a good question—especially since Hyundai has already made lofty promises about flying taxis before. In fact, an early version of the air taxi prototype called S-A1 was unveiled at CES 2020. At that event, the company made a lot of bold declarations and implied that it would be partnering with existing rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to provide eVTOLs in metropolitan centers.
However, the market for eVTOL has largely failed to take flight, mostly due to the Federal Aviation Administration's slow and arduous approval process.
But things are starting to look up. In June 2023, the FAA approved an air taxi design from Joby Aviations, a company widely considered to be the leader in eVTOL design and production. Hyundai’s new prototype also signals renewed hype in the transportation method after years of slumped interest.
For now, Supernal and Hyundai are planning to obtain regulatory approval themselves from the FAA to begin conducting flights out of Los Angeles. A Supernal spokesperson told The Daily Beast that this process involves showing that the S-A2 is capable of flying through specific flight corridors that commercial flights out of LAX aren’t flying through (they want to avoid potential collisions between airliners and eVTOLs, after all).
However, if they can successfully showcase the utility and benefits of the S-A2 in a bustling, congested metropolitan area like Los Angeles County, then they should be able to do it in any city—or at least that’s the idea. Until then, though, the rest of us will just have to call an Uber or take the humble train.
