When people think of flying cars, they might think of the Jetsons or Star Wars and the future in general. People think of these shows as far off in the future realities, yet it may be our everyday soon. Alef Aeronautics — founded in 2015 by Jim Dukhovny, Constantine Kisly, Pavel Markin, and Oleg Petrov — set out to make one. In a video released in February, the public got a first glimpse at what one of these could really look like. In the video, the flying car prototype flew over another car parked on the ground.
The aim of the Alef Flying Car is to build “the solution to the issues of modern congestion”, according to the Alef Aeronautics website. Think instead of waking up, afraid of being late to work, you can just climb onto your roof and fly to work in a quarter the time it would take to drive a normal car. This is their vision.
Originally, this vision started in Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto between the four founders of the company. Having drawn up a model of one on a napkin, they assumed that the building process would take 6 months. This turned out to be a heavy underestimate as they had to satisfy the many requirements of being a real car and a flying car.
In 2016, the first sub-scale prototype was built. Tim Draper first took interest in this investment when he saw the potential with the proprietary propulsion system installed into a full scale version.
After more investors from around the world saw the potential, many young and smart engineers joined the team and many famous and world expert people joined the Advisory Board.
Between 2018 and 2021, more demonstrations of the invention were tested and more and more people became excited about the product. This allowed the leadership to move towards the branding of their growing company, including to the interior and exterior designs of the cars.
In 2022, the company officially rebranded itself to “Alef”. Alef is the first letter of many alphabets—including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and Syrian. It being the first letter of so many influential alphabets shows the important position the company will eventually take in all the aspects of the public—in the hearts, minds, and on the streets.
The model A is classified as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV) with its top speed being 25 miles per hour. In contrast, when flying, it can reach speeds up to 110 miles per hour according to Alef.
The excitement this car has generated has resulted in over 3,200 preorders for the $300,000 car.
“The idea of flying cars would be super cool. This would definitely make it easier to travel. I think I’m mostly excited just because I would look forward to life without traffic,” said junior Nico Rivera, sharing the excitement of those who pre-ordered.
In contrast, junior Luke Spalding thinks it may not be as big of a change, yet will still have some benefits. “I think flying cars won’t necessarily be a game changer but will definitely add convenience and functionality to a new way of travel that many might need,” said Spalding.
While this video shows the prototype flying over a car, it doesn’t necessarily reveal how far we are from actually getting this futuristic car and what issues it will solve or potentially create.
“We are further away than the video makes us believe—many decades away. What does it solve—fossil fuel usage, traffic congestion, getting from point A to B faster? What other issues does it bring up?,” says High School Physics teacher Matthew Woodard.
“I still applaud that people are sinking money into this, that great, but I won’t be an adopter or invest my retirement money into it,” says Woodard displaying how some are hesitant to put their money into something so novel.
Whether cars actually have a huge impact on the daily lives of people or not, their emergence is a clear sign we are moving into the future, and ideas that were thought of as impossible or only seen in science fiction may soon be facets of everyday life.