How Electric Hypercar Tech Could Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel

MotorTrend — one of the world’s most widely read automotive titles — has turned its attention skyward, exploring how high-performance electric motor technology developed for hypercars is now powering a new generation of supersonic aircraft engines.

At the heart of the story is our partnership with California-based aerospace startup Astro Mechanica, and our SPX242-94 motors powering their Duality™ adaptive engine. Designed to operate efficiently from takeoff all the way to Mach 3+, Duality™ uses four of our motors to independently drive the fan and compressor stages. This turboelectric architecture allows the engine to behave as a turbofan, turbojet, or ramjet depending on the speed regime. Each motor delivers 400kW peak output and weighs just 31.3kg: a power-to-weight ratio that, as MotorTrend notes, rivals anything in the hypercar world.

Derek Jordanou-Bailey, our Chief Engineer for Aerospace, outlines why the convergence of motorsport and aviation electrification is no accident. The same engineering challenges of extreme power density, thermal resilience, and weight minimisation that define performance in Formula E or a 2,000bhp hypercar are precisely what make our motors viable at altitude. With Astro Mechanica targeting first flight within three years and a fifth-generation engine already in development using custom Helix motors delivering 900kW continuous power at up to 20,000rpm, supersonic propulsion is very much our next frontier.

Read the full article: How Electric Hypercar Tech Could Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel (At Last!) – MOTORTREND June 2026