Alef Aeronautics CEO Jim Dukhovny is very excited about his company’s Model A flying car, and so are 2,850 other people with $300,000 to spare. He told CNBC that the company has that many pre-orders, and he made some big claims.
Because San Mateo, California-based Alef got that many signups just in time since its order books opened up in October 2022, Dukhovny says that “makes it the best-selling aircraft in history, more than Boeing, Airbus, Joby Aviation, and most of the eVTOLs [electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles] combined.”
Alef began its flying car work in 2015 and flew a prototype in 2019. Venture capitalist Tim Draper, an early Tesla and SpaceX investor, is one of the company’s backers.
The two-seater Model A doesn’t go very fast on land — with speeds up to about 35 miles per hour — but is a bit faster in the air, able to cruise at 110 miles per hour. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave the company the green light to take it to the skies last July, at which point the car had gained 2,500 pre-orders. The company hopes to have the Model A on the road and in the skies by next year.