Ah, flying cars! Is there anything in the automotive world that has been so wonderfully consistent in disappointing everyone, every time? No, there hasn’t!
Flying cars have the absolute finest track record when it comes to letting everyone down and never actually happening, which they have done again and again, managing, via some magical combination of time and technical development, to always and forever be about two years away. Now yet another company, Alef, has decided to pretend like this is going to be the time that flying cars actually happen. This one does look more car-like than most, for whatever that’s worth.
Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe this one will be the one that changes the game! Maybe we’re ready now, and all of the issues with weight and the dramatic increase of complexity of flying over driving are solved. Or how if something goes wrong, pulling over isn’t really an option – though to be fair, Alef does note they’ll have a full-aircraft parachute, so that would make plummets much more manageable. But this time it’ll be different!
The company got some attention recently thanks to videos like this one that show what looks sort of like a cartoonish “car” slowly and oddly gently jump-floating over an SUV. The whole thing looks surreal:
NEW: Alef Aeronautics releases footage of their electric car "jumping" over another car on a road in California.
The company claims this is the "first test in history of a car drive and vertical takeoff in a city."
The company hopes to solve traffic by developing a car that can… pic.twitter.com/fjrFDIBlbK
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 21, 2025
So, what exactly is going on there? The cartoony car-shaped thing is the Alef Model A, and it’s essentially a multi-rotor type of electric flying machine with a central passenger pod (with a stated capacity of 250 pounds, so I hope you and your passenger are pretty trim and unburdened by any sort of luggage). What looks like a hood and trunk is actually a perforated shell over the rotors, which are held in place via a simple, lightweight carbon fiber frame.
It’s not clear where the batteries are stored?
Each of the four skinny wheels has its own electric motor for ground-based motion, and the top speed is only 35 mph, at least according to the company’s initial estimates. I wonder if they’re deliberately limiting the speed so it would be classified as a Low Speed Neighborhood Electric Vehicle and would be exempt from actual crash testing and other real-car hassles. Range is claimed to be 200 miles on ground and about 110 miles above it.
When in actual flight, not just slo-mo car hopping, the Model A rotates onto its side as the passenger cabin gimbals to remain upright, because I suspect most people were not fond of flying while sitting sideways.
It’s sort of strange, but it makes sense, at least from a perspective of rotor orientation. When oriented like a conventional car, the vehicle can take off vertically and perform the sort of gentle hops over cars we saw in the first video:
Other promo videos for the company show the car hopping cavalierly over wrecks and traffic obstructions, which I suppose could work, though there’s something that feels oddly dickish about the maneuver. And if there are lots of similar hopping cars, you’re just going to get another traffic jam 20 feet or so above the ground:
Alef says they’ll have a production Model Z that’ll sell for $35,000 and go 400 miles on the ground and 200 in the air by 2030, and I trust this claim about as much as I trust dental floss to carry my weight if used as a zipline.
I think Alef is getting a bit of attention now because of the way their flying car looks and because of the strangeness of their videos. There are some real benefits to their concept – I don’t want to seem like a complete curmudgeon. For example, the lack of wings and VTOL capability are what something like this needs, and it looks like it could, hypothetically, transition from air to ground with ease.
[Mercedes’s note: I will also point out that it’s legally irrelevant if your “flying car” is an eVTOL. You will still need a pilot license and takeoffs and landings will need to happen at airports. The dream of getting stuck in traffic and then just taking off is entirely unrealistic. Consider that many major airports are located outside of city centers, so you won’t really beat traffic that much by flying your car. Certainly, it’s not something the average person is going to be able to do, either. – MS]
That said, this also solves none of the major issues around flying cars – driver/pilot training, air traffic issues, range, durability vs. lightness, limited capacity, all of that – so I’m not really convinced this is anything other than another “perpetually two-year-away flying nonsense-car.”
Also, what’s with “the world’s first real flying car?” I wonder what hyper-specific criteria they’re using to make that claim. Maybe no removable or foldable wings? Because there have been “flying cars” of one sort or another since the 1940s.
Remember the Convair Model 118 from 1947?
The Alef Model A will cost $299,999 (that’s the expected price) and you can pre-order one for $150 or be in the “priority queue” for $1,500. The company claims it has about 2,800 pre-orders, and they expect the first cars to be built at the end of this year. I expect that’s wildly optimistic.
Whatever. Maybe this time will be different! Either way, it is kinda fun to see these videos. I’d definitely be curious to try one of these, just for fun, but I probably killed that chance by writing this.
Oh well. I’ll just buy one in two years!
I’m so tired of seeing this sort of crap over and over again.
Flying cars will not happen as long as physics work the way they do. Anyone trying to push a product like this is either a moron or a conman.
come on… that thing looks like a modern version of one of those kits that you ordered out of Popular Mechanics and powered with a lawnmower engine. i fully expect to never hear about this company again, except maybe that early investors can’t get their money back.
Ha! What a total joke/scam/ripoff
The 1st and only one that really matters is the DeLorean! That’s real, right? That’s the only cool one anyway (and the flying train)
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need ROADS!”
How did flying cars ever become something that some people wanted? Even if they worked, keeping them from crashing into each other seems like a much harder problem than the flying part. I certainly wouldn’t want any flying over me.
Also why do people keep calling these things flying cars? They don’t really have much in the way of car attributes.
The only thing that I can figure is that putting flying cars in a story set the bar for the suspension of disbelief, conveniently high, so that the author didn’t really have to do much work to make it believable after that.
I didn’t need more proof that we live in a time that BS flies.
They should call this thing the Locust because that’s what it’s going to look like at rush hour if these proliferate, a swarm of locusts rising out of a cornfield.
Now my idea for a Personal Free Flight Transport – or PFFT – is a giant sphere made of Nerf Ball material surrounding a gimbaled carbon fiber passenger cage, power and propulsion unit, and full AI self-navigation system.
A pilots license will be unnecessary because passengers will not direct the craft, but simply speak a destination. There won’t even be windows. Deconfliction won’t be necessary because the Nerf hull will absorb collision energy and transfer it through a regen system to replenish a lightweight, solid state battery, while the PFFT crafts just roll around each other and proceed on.
On the ground, the PFFT can roll harmlessly over most obstacles, including pedestrians! And you can even store it in a regular garage as the PFFT easily compresses down to a size no larger than your average compact car.
Development testing on the propulsion system, navigation computer and Nerf hull are in the final stages and commercial rollout is anticipated in two years. Advance reservations are a fully refundable $200 and being taken now. Reserve your place in line today because by 2027, we’ll all be going PFFT!
You son of a bitch, I’m in.
“giant sphere”
Bubble boy, is that you?
GEORGE: Oh, Noooo, I’m so sorry. It’s the MOOPS. The correct answer is, The MOOPS.
DONALD: MOOPS? LET ME SEE THAT. THAT’S NOT MOOPS YOU JERK, IT’S MOORS. IT’S A MISPRINT.
GEORGE: I’m sorry the card says MOOPS.
DONALD: IT DOESN’T MATTER. I’S THE MOORS. THERE’S NO MOOPS.
GEORGE: It’s MOOPS.
DONALD: MOORS.
GEORGE: MOOPS,
DONALD: MOORS!
Even if it works, where are you going in a car that seats one and stores nothing?
I guess the board of Nikola needed a new place to meet. I get the whole evtol quad copter thing they try every once in a while in Vegas Singapore and Dubai. If they manage to make it it will do 1/3 of what they claim and cost 5x more. There is some interesting work being done with lighter batteries for aviation and space.
Is that still true if these qualify as ultralights?
Probably not? But 254lbs would be quite the tough target. Maybe with composites who knows.
There’s no way this thing is an ultralight. But, if it is, now you have a new fun problem because the FAA isn’t fond of ultralights flying over populated areas or in certain airspace. So now it’s even less useful than advertised.
It’s a drone! Just a drone pilot license from the FAA after a quick test online. No problem.
(Total sarcasm if not obvious)
Give it another week and there won’t be an FAA.
“The company hopes to solve traffic by developing a car that can simply fly over it”
I guarantee you that this thing will NOT solve traffic. All this means is some rich asshole will try to butt in front of you, fuck up and land ontop of someone’s car.
Honestly, Elon Musk’s ‘Boring Company’ is actually a better idea… and even that isn’t all that great of an idea.
What WILL help ease traffic is better urban planning and more mass transit.
And I saw another video of this ‘car’ driving on the ground and what I saw suggest it’s absolutely terrible as far as cars go.
Like other ‘flying cars’, I expect that either this won’t make it into production OR if it does, the production will be limited, the vehicles insanely expensive while also being crap and after a few years, the company will be out of business.