Flying cars are no longer just for the movies. Alef Aeronautics has begun building the first electric flying cars for customers, which are being hand-made in California.

Electric flying cars are real and hand-made in the US

It sounds like something from The Jetsons or Harry Potter, but flying cars are becoming a reality. Alef has been developing all-electric flying cars for about a decade now.

After unveiling a prototype in 2016, the company secured backing from early Tesla and Bitcoin investor Tim Draper. Draper became a pioneering investor and mentor to the team.

The big funding round propelled Alef to create not just a toy, but a flying car that can be used as an everyday commute vehicle.

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In 2018, the company’s first full-size “skeleton” was flown, and the following year, the first prototype was shown to a group of investors.

Alef introduced its first model, dubbed the Model A, in 2022, a 100% electric flying car that can drive 220 miles with a 110-mile flight range.

Less than a year later, it became the first to receive a Special Airworthiness Certification from the US Federal Aviation Administration while securing its first pre-orders from a car dealership.

We got our first look at the flying car in action earlier this year after Alef released a video of an ultralight Model A jumping over other vehicles, including a Tesla Cybertruck (see the video below). According to Alef, it was the “first-ever video in history of a car driving and vertically taking off.”

In its mission to make flying cars a reality, the California-based startup announced another major milestone on Monday.

Alef said it has begun manufacturing the first flying cars for customers at its facility in Silicon Valley, California. The first models are being hand-made and will be delivered to just a few early customers “for the purpose of testing flying cars in the real world environment,” according to Alef.

The company plans to train and support early adopters, using lessons learned as it ramps up production and deliveries.

“We are happy to report that production of the first flying car has started on schedule,” Alef’s CEO, Jim Dukhovny, said at the event.

Alef claims its flying cars are “100% electric, drivable on public roads, and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities.”

The startup has already received 3,500 pre-orders, which it says is worth $1 billion. Alef’s flying car is expected to start at around $299,999. You can pre-order one on Alef’s website with a $150 deposit, or you can secure a spot in the priority queue for $1,500. The first customer deliveries are expected to begin in 2026.

Tesla’s November numbers out of China are in, and they confirm what we’ve been suspecting for a while now: the growth story in the world’s most important EV market has officially stalled for the year.

While Giga Shanghai is still churning out vehicles, the local appetite for them seems to have hit a ceiling, and the company is now facing a mathematical impossibility if it wants to avoid a year-over-year decline in 2025.

According to new data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers(CAAM), Tesla achieved 73,145 retail sales (domestic deliveries) in November 2025.

While that is a significant volume of vehicles, it represents a slight year-over-year decline compared to November 2024, when Tesla delivered 73,490 units.

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A drop of roughly 345 units might seem like a rounding error, but in a market that is aggressively expanding with competitors like BYD and Xiaomi posting record growth, a contraction for Tesla is concerning.

The picture gets gloomier when you zoom out to the annual performance.

Throughout 2025, Tesla has struggled to maintain the momentum it saw in late 2023 and early 2024. We saw significant dips earlier this year, particularly in February and October, that put the company behind the eight ball.

Now, with only one month left in the year, we can calculate exactly what Tesla needs to do to match its 2024 retail total of 657,105 vehicles.

As of the end of November, Tesla’s year-to-date retail sales for 2025 sit at 531,855.

That leaves a deficit of 125,250 vehicles.

To put it plainly: Tesla needs to deliver over 125,000 cars in China in December alone just to break even with last year’s numbers.

For context, Tesla’s absolute best retail month on record in China was December 2024, where they managed to push out 82,927 units. Even if Tesla pulls every demand lever available, such as 0% financing, insurance subsidies, and FSD transfer schemes, Giga Shanghai simply does not have the historical precedence, and likely not the capacity, to produce and then for Tesla’s retail org to deliver 125,000 vehicles locally in a single month.

The wholesale numbers (which include exports) peaked at around 94,000 in December 2023. Even if they diverted every single car made in Shanghai to local customers and halted all exports (which they usually do at quarter-end anyway), they would still fall short by over 30,000 units.

Electrek’s Take

This is a sobering moment for Tesla in China. 2025 will mark a year of regression for Tesla’s retail sales in China.

Tesla, the global leader in electrification, can’t grow in China, the world’s largest and fastest-growing EV market.

We’ve been saying this for a while: the Model 3 and Model Y are incredible vehicles, but they are saturation products in a market flooded with fresh, competitive, and cheaper alternatives. The chart clearly shows the fatigue. In 2024, we saw a massive end-of-year push (82k in Dec), but the buildup to that in 2025 just isn’t there.

The slight dip in November, usually a strong month for end-of-quarter pushes, is the smoking gun. It suggests that even with incentives, the new Model Y, and the Model YL, demand is static, amid a surging EV market.

Even if Tesla delivers a record of 85,000 vehicles in December, it would be down 6% in China for 2025.

Meanwhile, competitors like Xiaomi are up 175% and Xpeng 70%. This is a problem for Tesla.