{"id":206470,"date":"2026-03-06T01:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206470\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T01:02:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T01:02:06","slug":"oc-based-flying-taxi-startup-lays-off-most-of-its-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206470\/","title":{"rendered":"OC-Based Flying Taxi Startup Lays Off Most Of Its Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>IRVINE, CA \u2014 An Orange County-based startup backed by billions of dollars laid off roughly most of its staff last week. <\/p>\n<p>Irvine-based startup Supernal just stepped out of the high-stakes race to fill the skies with electric air taxis, according to reports from The Air Current and The Orange County Register. <\/p>\n<p>According to the reports, the startup cut 296 jobs \u2014 roughly 80 percent of its workforce. leaving behind a meager staff of 80 employees, despite a more than $6 investment from Hyundai Motor Group capital since its 2020 launch. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This decision is a strategic pivot to ensure our staffing and cost structures are optimized for the long-term delivery of our market-aligned aircraft design,&#8221; a Supernal spokesman told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2026\/03\/02\/supernal-lays-off-296-workers-consolidates-operations-into-irvine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The OC Register<\/a>. &#8220;Hyundai Motor Group remains committed to the Advanced Air Mobility business as part of its future mobility vision, and Supernal will continue to serve as the group\u2019s dedicated AAM execution arm for aircraft development.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theaircurrent.com\/feed\/dispatches\/hyundai-evtol-subsidiary-supernal-lays-off-staff-major-retrenchment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">According to The Air Current,<\/a> Supernal will consolidate operations into its Irvine headquarters while shutting down \u2014 or scaling back work \u2014 in Mojave, Fremont and its former Washington, D.C. facilities. <\/p>\n<p>The layoffs were made in spite of the more than $6 billion in investment from Hyundai since Supernal&#8217;s 2020 launch, which the company struggled to convert into a flight-ready product. <\/p>\n<p>The loss takes Supernal out of the running toward the eVTOL industry&#8217;s race toward the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, where air taxis are expected to ease the ground-traffic frustrations that many athletes and visitors will confront. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, San Jose-based Archer Aviation announced it had been named the Official Air Taxi Provider of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA. It&#8217;s one of several companies vying to be leaders in what they see as the future of local transportation.<\/p>\n<p>The company plans to use its aircraft, dubbed Midnight, to ferry athletes and visitors between the Southland&#8217;s spread-out Olympic infrastructure in minutes. Designed to carry up to four passengers, Midnight has 12 electric engines and propellers that help it fly at up to 150 mph. And the company says it&#8217;s 100 times quieter than a helicopter.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft \u2014 categorized as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOLs) \u2014 will operate out of vertiports (as in vertical ports) located throughout the region. That includes locations near SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, LAX, Santa Monica, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Long Beach, Van Nuys and Orange County, according to the company.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRVINE, CA \u2014 An Orange County-based startup backed by billions of dollars laid off roughly most of its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-206470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}