The long road to a legitimate flying car has been littered with failure. There’s a Wikipedia page that catalogs over 40 separate flying car attempts. While a number have gotten airborne, it’s still rare to see, especially for one as unique as the Alef Model Zero.
The California-based company invited NBC News to come to watch the Model Zero take flight and do something we’ve never seen another flying car do: leapfrog another car. Alef isn’t building your typical flying car with expanding wings that need a long runway. Instead, it has combined the virtues of a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicle with a road car that can simply drive away once it lands.
Watch It Fly
NBC News was recording when Alef demonstrated this unique ability of its flying car. One of the company’s founders, Jim Dukhovny, says his car will instantly cut your commute time in half with its ability to leave traffic jams behind as it soars over the roofs of its Earth-bound brethren.
In the video we see the Model Zero take off vertically and reach an altitude of around 20-30 feet before it moves like a flying saucer over a parked Chevy Suburban. The demonstration goes off without a hitch as the Model Zero lands safely on the other side.
NBC’s on-site reporter, Steve Patterson, wasn’t allowed within 100 yards of the demonstration while it was happening, nor did he witness anyone getting into or out of the vehicle before or after the demo. This suggests the possibility the car was piloted remotely, perhaps for safety reasons.
How Does It Work?
The Alef Model Zero is all-electric and appears to be the offspring of a DJI drone and a Ford Probe. Passengers sit in a gimbaled capsule in the middle of the vehicle, while the rest of the body is made of grates through which air can pass. Underneath the grating are what appear to be eight vertically oriented propellers positioned inboard of the wheels. The wheels themselves are very thin, almost like bicycle tires, which likely helps reduce weight. There’s no word on specs such as the vehicle’s weight, the size of its battery pack, or how much power it produces. Alefa does say it’s aiming for a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles.
So far, Alef claims it has 3,200 preorders for the car, the name of which will change to Model A once it reaches production. The price is a lofty $300,000, though that seems reasonable considering a Rolls-Royce Cullinan can’t take off and land in your backyard.
In the future, the company hopes to follow up its first flying car with the Model Z, a four-passenger model with a driving range of 400 miles and a flying range of 200 miles that costs just $35,000. They’re giving themselves a lot of time to make it happen; the Model Z isn’t slated to arrive until 2035.
Source: NBC News
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