Flying car prototype gets FAA’s airworthiness certificate
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Alef Automotive’s fully electric vehicle prototype, which can fly and travel on roads, the airworthiness certificate on June 27th to receive U.S. government approval.
Alef Automotive’s vehicle, Model A, is the first flying vehicle drivable on public roads and could be parked like a normal car; it can also takeoff and land vertically. Model A will be able to carry one or two occupants and have a road range of 200 miles and a flying range of 110 miles.
Alef is estimating its Model A to sell for $300,000, with the first delivery expected by the end of 2025. The FAA’s certificate granted to Model A allows for limited purposes, including exhibition, research, and development.
Alef’s flying car is not the first of its kind to get the certificate, with several automakers working on all-electric vehicle takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOLs), but its ability to function both on roads and in the air makes it different, said the FAA.
“We’re excited to receive this certification from the FAA. It allows us to move closer to bringing people an environmentally friendly and faster commute, saving individuals and companies hours each week. This is one small step for planes, one giant step for cars,” said Jim Dukhovny, Alef’s CEO.
The company’s website has stated that the flying car will be certified as a low-speed vehicle, as it will not be able to go faster than 25 miles per hour on a paved road. If the driver needs a faster route, they can use Alef’s flight capabilities, the website added.
The Alef flying car still needs approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to go on the roads.
Dukhovny and his co-founders were first inspired to try to create a flying car in 2015, when they realised it was the same year Marty McFly drove one in the 1989 movie, Back to the Future II.
Dukhovny lacked the technical skills to take on such a complicated task by himself, but they were able to create an automated test flight of a skeleton version of the car in 2018, and a full-sized prototype was flown in 2019.
Although Alef needed the FAA’s airworthiness certificate to proceed with research and development, the company took refundable pre-orders for 400 of the vehicles, with a cost of $150 for the general queue and $1,500 for the priority queue.
