Alef's flying car already has 3,000 orders and the support of Elon Musk

The Alef Model A, the flying car from the American company Alef Aeronautics presented last week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, ​​has already accumulated nearly 3,000 pre-reservations, as announced by the company's co-founder and CEO, Jim Dukhovny.

Customers who are interested in making a pre-reservation only have to make a deposit of 150 dollars (about 138 euros) for a vehicle that will be priced at 300,000 dollars (about 276,000 euros at the current exchange rate) when it goes on sale in 2025.

As Dukhovny acknowledged, customers can withdraw the deposit at any time if they do not wish to confirm the pre-booking, which is why they are not yet firm factory orders. At the moment, only two prototypes have been manufactured.

Alef Aeronautics estimates that pre-reservations represent a turnover of more than 850 million dollars (about 780 million euros), although they will not be transformed into real income until the moment of delivery of the vehicles, so it is still in the phase seeking financing.

The aerospace company SpaceX, owned by magnate Elon Musk, has already shown its support for the Californian startup founded in 2015 by Jim Dukhovny, Constantine Kisly, Pavel Markin and Oleg Petrov.

The Alef Model A is a fully electric two-seater vehicle, which can take off vertically and fly in any direction, with a flight range of 110 miles (about 177 kilometers).

It has eight drone-like propellers (four in the front and another four in the back) that rotate independently at different speeds so it can fly in any direction. In addition, it reaches a cruising speed in the air of 110 mph (about 180 km/h).

On land it can also carry two people and drive like a conventional electric car. It has a range of 200 miles (about 322 kilometers) on the highway, but the speed is limited to a maximum of 35 mph (about 56 km/h).

The Alef Model A only weighs 850 pounds (about 385 kg), so it is classified in the United States as an ultralight vehicle. That means it falls under the same legal classification as small electric vehicles like electric golf carts.

In July 2023, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted the Alef Model A a special certificate of airworthiness, allowing the Californian company to carry out test flights. Alef Aeronautics expects to deliver the first series production Model A in 2026.

Alef Aeronautics is also working on the development of an electric sedan for four people, called Model Z, which is scheduled to launch in 2035 at a price of $35,000 to match the most economically priced electric vehicles.