Image via designboom/YouTube
At the beginning of 2025, people were losing their minds over a Chinese electric car that can jump over potholes in a road. But we have an American electric car which can “jump” over another car by flying. Meet Alef Aeronautical, based in California, and what might be the first flying car which actually kind of looks like a flying car.
This Jeep Wrangler is being called a “Corvette killer.”
It also kind of looks like a flying saucer. We’re almost crossing into uncanny valley territory here, instead of just a flat-out ridiculous design like the Cybertruck. The longer we look at Alef’s vehicle, the more confused we become.
NEW: Alef Aeronautics releases footage of their electric car "jumping" over another car on a road in California.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 21, 2025
The company claims this is the "first test in history of a car drive and vertical takeoff in a city."
The company hopes to solve traffic by developing a car that can… pic.twitter.com/fjrFDIBlbK
The idea, whenever this thing becomes available to the public, is that you can just hover or “jump” over traffic when it gridlocks. In other words, you’ll be even more annoying than motorcyclists lane splitting when everyone else has to just sit there.
While most of us have to settle for watching videos uploaded to social media, NBC News was able to have a camera crew and reporter on hand for a real life demonstration of the Alef Aeronautics car.
They had to be stationed a bit away and the reporter noted they weren’t allowed to see the driver enter or exit the vehicle. Apparently, there are sensitive technologies the company wants to protect from prying eyes inside.
Or maybe it’s that a little green man is secretly piloting the vehicle? At this point, we don’t know what to think.
The car itself has skinny little tires and apparently is light enough for four people to pick up and just move. Most of the body looks like the cover over the fan you use to keep cool in the summer heat, a crisscross honey
NBC News says over 3,200 people have preordered the flying car, which sells for $300,000 a pop. If you think that’s expensive, you haven’t been shopping for a flying car, because they aren’t exactly cheap.
In an interview with CNBC last year, Jim Dukhovny, co-founder and CEO of Alef Aeronautics, said the target date for beginning production of the flying cars for the public is by the end of 2025.
This thing is weird, but sometimes it’s the weird stuff that propels technology forward, but not always. Do you think flying cars will ever be practical?
Image via designboom/YouTube
The shyster man-bun appears to be selling a drone draped in a car-like skin. The “car” has no apparent access points or door seams. Not so handicap accessible. You can see better than 6-8 inches under the skirt of the “car”. Add this to the fact it has to be light enough to fly or hover as the case may be and you have a “car” that doesn’t stand a chance of passing any of the NHTSA crash evaluations…that is unless the passenger compartment is a simple carbon fiber sphere.