The promise of a future full of flying cars is nothing new. For decades, futurists have been promoting the dream of your car taking off and hovering over a traffic jam.
The most interesting part of a recent prototype announcement from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Alef Aeronautics may not be the car itself, which Alef says will be able to take off vertically in the air and fly like a helicopter up to 110 miles fly single charge.
It’s the timing: The company plans to deliver the vehicles to customers by the end of 2025.
Alef’s Model A retails for $300,000 and presales are currently open. Interested customers can only pay a deposit of $150 to get on the waitlist, or $1,500 for a “priority” spot on the list. Alef says the company has been test driving and flying its prototype since 2019, and the version it plans to ship to customers will also have a 200-mile range.
Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny tells CNBC Make It that the car’s primary purpose is to stay on the road and ideally travel only short elevations and distances through the air to avoid certain obstacles. He calls “hop” scenarios such moments “in which the customer mainly uses the vehicle as a car and only ‘hops’ over the obstacles when necessary”.
In a statement in October, Dukhovny cited “road conditions, weather and infrastructure” as possible reasons for the short-term elopement.
It’s a bold concept. But for a flying car to actually appear on freeways soon, experts say a lot has to happen.
A challenging path to legality and mass production
The car’s design includes a carbon fiber body with an open, mesh-like top housing four propellers on each side. Once the car takes off vertically, the entire vehicle flips onto its side, with the two-seater cockpit rotating as well, allowing the propellers to steer it like an oversized flying drone.
As for driving the vehicle, Alef says it’s designed to comply with motor vehicle laws and regulations, which the company says makes it “street legal.”
Alef even has the backing of Tim Draper, a high-profile venture capitalist who was an early investor in both Tesla and SpaceX. Its namesake, Draper Associates Fund V, made a $3 million seed investment in Alef in October.
But Mike Ramsey, an auto and smart mobility analyst at Gartner, says Alef’s plans are “clean” – but claims the company has “a tough road ahead” ahead of it.
Mass production is a challenge for any auto startup, and it’s often difficult to get regulatory approvals to legally drive on public roads, let alone fly over them, Ramsey says.
Ramsey notes that the Federal Aviation Administration has provided updated guidance on the requirements needed for ground vehicles to legally take off and fly in public airspace. The FAA even reportedly gave the green light for flight testing in July for another flying car concept, Samson Sky’s Switchblade.
But Ramsey insists that even with more clarity from the FAA and other regulators, companies looking to get their flying car concepts certified still face a “major challenge.”
“The security requirements that everyone [road] vehicle, how you can get that to work along with the requirements you need to make a flying vehicle legal would be quite extensive,” Ramsey says.
Alef hopes to speed up its regulatory process by first seeking air certification outside the US, particularly in Asia and Europe, Dukhovny says: “[That] will not only help us establish a safety record, but will also allow us to collect enough data to support the US FAA certification process.
Dukhovny also plans to first have the Model A certified as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV), which would mean the car could not exceed around 25 mph on public roads. Alef would later aim for full automotive homologation, he adds.
“That would be an incredible achievement”
The Model A isn’t Alef’s only bold plan: Dukhovny has also publicly announced his intention to build a cheaper version called the Model Z, which will sell for just $35,000 by 2030.
In October, Dukhovny told Portal that the proposed Model Z would be “no more complicated than a Toyota Corolla” and should therefore have a similar price range.
But it’s “not easy” to build a mass-produced vehicle — like the Corolla — let alone turn one into a legal airplane, says Ramsey.
“Personally, I would be very surprised if we could bring such an aircraft to series production in the next two years,” he adds. “That would be an incredible achievement.”
Not everyone agrees. Hugh Martin, CEO of transportation logistics startup Lacuna Technologies, told CNBC last year he could see commercially available flying cars as early as 2024.
Among the big companies battling to be the first to market a flying car are Fiat Chrysler and China’s Xpeng. Hyundai and Uber have been working on an air taxi concept since 2020, and Hyundai subsidiary Supernal has announced plans to commercialize a flying capsule by 2028.
But even if the cars are ready by then, regulatory approval could be a much longer process.
“The regulatory challenges alone are going to be pretty big,” says Ramsey.
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