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Hyundai’s electric vertical takeoff and landing startup Supernal is shifting its global headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Irvine, California and asking around three dozen of workers to relocate, TechCrunch has learned.
The company told TechCrunch about 5% of its total workforce — roughly 35 to 40 people — are being asked to relocate to California. Supernal declined to say how many will remain in D.C. But the move affects a majority of the people located there; Data from LinkedIn and a source who spoke to TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity show around 45 people work in the D.C. area for Supernal.
The change comes just a little more than a year after Supernal opened the 28,000-square-foot office in D.C. The company said, at the time, that it spent more than a year building out the three-story office “with the mantra of ‘design facilities that inspire and exceed the comfort of employees’ homes.’” Supernal opened what it called an “engineering headquarters” in Irvine and an “R&D headquarters” in Fremont, California around the same time.
Jaiwon Shin, president of Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of Supernal, said in a statement to TechCrunch that the decision was made “to enhance collaboration and communication across teams.”
The DC office “will remain a hub for policy and regulatory efforts,” Shin said. He said the change will not affect Supernal’s goal of launching an eVTOL service in 2028.
Hyundai has been working on eVTOL technology for years, but announced in December 2021 it would spin out its urban air mobility division into a separate business arm called Supernal. The effort has grown to around 700 employees in the years since.
The eVTOL industry is still in flux as companies try to turn the idea of flying taxis into a real business. Volocopter has been teetering on the brink of insolvency for months, and Lilium shut down in October. Meanwhile, Toyota recently poured $500 million more into Joby Aviation as it eyes a 2025 commercial launch.
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
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