Alef Aeronautics Secures “Close to 3,000 Orders for Model A Personal ‘Drive and Fly’ Vehicle”

SpaceX backed start­up, Alef Aero­nau­tics, recent­ly announced it has received close to 3,000 orders for its under-devel­op­ment, two-seater ‘Dri­ve and Fly’ vehi­cle, the Alef Mod­el A, reports a press release.

The company’s first work­ing pro­to­type was unveiled last Sep­tem­ber to crit­i­cal acclaim at the Detroit Auto Show. It has been described as “one of the most promis­ing attempts at cre­at­ing a Dri­ve and Fly per­son­al vehi­cle for the pub­lic.”

Jim Dukhovny, co-Founder and CEO of Alef, stat­ed in a recent inter­view with CNBC, that the com­pa­ny had achieved, “a lit­tle over 2,850 pre-orders with deposits already down.” He point­ed out that pre-orders were more than com­peti­tors like Wisk, CityAir­bus and Joby Avi­a­tion.” 

The Mod­el A is cur­rent­ly avail­able for pre-order on the company’s web­site, offer­ing two options. 

: A cheap­er USD150 choice for the “gen­er­al queue.” 

: USD1,500 for a “pri­or­i­ty queue.” 

Although, Dukhovny point­ed out,  “Pro­duc­tion will be slow…one, anoth­er, then more… if every­thing goes right and we have enough fund­ing, we then plan to start pro­duc­tion of the first Mod­el A by the end of 2025.”

Jim Dukhovny Unveil­ing the Mod­el A at the Detroit Auto Show

Alef Aero­nau­tics is finan­cial­ly backed by investor Tim Drap­er, who pre­vi­ous­ly fund­ed Tes­la and SpaceX when both com­pa­nies were in their infan­cy, there­fore, help­ing pro­pel Elon Musk into the lime­light and pop­u­lar­is­ing elec­tric cars.

Once com­mer­cial­ly avail­able, Alef is look­ing to charge cus­tomers USD300,000 for each dri­ve and fly vehi­cle. Based on this, the present order book offers a com­bined val­ue of over USD850 mil­lion.

The Mod­el A is designed to dri­ve on roads, with a top speed of between 25 and 35 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles. In flight mode, this decreas­es to 110 miles. After ver­ti­cal liftoff, the vehi­cle rotates on its side and the seat­ing area moves posi­tion, so the dri­ver can face for­ward and fly the craft.

Mean­while, the futur­is­tic-look­ing mesh design on the top and bot­tom of the car plays an impor­tant role. It pro­vides air to be fed to the vehicle’s eight pro­peller motors in the front and back, while allow­ing it to flow through the craft when it is fly­ing fac­ing for­ward, mim­ic­k­ing a bi-plane design.

The Mod­el A weighs only 850 lbs. This means that in the U.S and Cana­da, the vehi­cle is clas­si­fied as an ultra­light air­craft, mean­ing it can be clas­si­fied in the same cat­e­go­ry as golf carts and oth­er small EVs.

Inside of the Mod­el A, in Rota­tion Mode

In 2023, the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) grant­ed Alef Aero­nau­tics a spe­cial air­wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cate, allow­ing the vehi­cle to go through the all-impor­tant tri­alling process. Present­ly, the car’s var­i­ous pro­to­types are under­go­ing test­ing and research in and around the Cal­i­forn­ian Sil­i­con Val­ley. 

While Dukhovny has said Ale­f’s main tar­get demo­graph­ic are com­muters in con­gest­ed cities, under­stand­ably, there are valid safe­ty con­cerns that ask the ques­tion: How real­is­tic is it for air reg­u­la­tors to allow such a vehi­cle fly­ing at a low alti­tude, to fly over tens of thou­sands of peo­ple? While, he bull­ish­ly describes the Mod­el A as “One step for planes, one giant leap for cars,” real­i­ty can some­how get in the way of such futur­is­tic visions.

Alef has also stat­ed it is work­ing on a USD35,000 four-seater sedan — called the Mod­el Z — set for release in 2035. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://alef.aero/

(Images: Alef Aero­nau­tics)

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