World’s first flying electric car headed for US dealerships as it racks up $750M in pre-orders
Walking into a dealership and picking out a flying electric car might seem like something taken out of a sci-fi script, but it’s getting closer to becoming a reality. After its flying electric car became the first of its kind to receive legal approval to take flight in the US, Alef Aeronautics has now secured pre-orders to sell modern aircraft through a car dealership – another first.
First flying electric car headed to US dealerships
Since 2015, Alef Aeronautics has been looking to do the impossible. To push the boundaries of sustainable travel and develop an actual drivable car with vertical takeoff (eVTOL) abilities. Plus, it has to be (relatively) affordable.
After showing a scaled prototype and proprietary electric propulsion tech, Tim Draper, a venture capitalist best known for his early Tesla investment, became the pioneering investor with $3 million in seed money to kick-start the program.
Over the years, the company has continued to develop the model, unveiling the first 100% electric flying car, “Model A,” on October 19, 2022.
According to Alef, its flying car can drive 200 miles and can fly 110 miles. Last month, Alef’s “Model A” broke the internet, being the first electric flying car to receive a Special Airworthiness Certification from the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Model A production is slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025, with deliveries following shortly after.
Although the Model A isn’t due out for at least another two years, people are already lining up for their chance to get one.
Alef announced Tuesday that pre-orders for its first flying electric car had reached 2,500, up from 400 at the end of the year, representing $750,000 in revenue once delivered.
The company began pre-orders for the $300,000 Model A in October, with the option to put down $150 for the regular queue or $1,500 for priority.
The orders include 2,100 deposits from individuals and agreements with businesses to sell 400 cars, including with a California car dealership. Alef is now the first in history with pre-orders to sell a modern aircraft through a car dealership.
Alef’s CEO, Jim Dukhovny, commented on the milestone, saying:
We’re excited to see such strong initial demand for the Alef flying car. We’re are thankful for the notes of gratitude and inspiration we received with some of the pre-orders. We still have a road to go before starting deliveries, but where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
The Model A is designed to carry one or two passengers who can drive on public roads with included vertical takeoff and landing capabilities.
After the Model A, Alef is already planning to launch a four-person sedan called “Model Z,” due out in 2035. The company claims it will feature over 300 miles of flying range with the ability to drive 220 miles, starting at $35,000.
Electric flying cars are beginning to pop up all over, with several companies finalizing prototype developments. Chinese EV maker XPeng’s Aero HT was the first crewed eVTOL to receive a flight permit in China earlier this year.
Meanwhile, on the other US coast, Doroni Aerospace became one of the first to successfully test pilot a two-seater eVTOL in the US. You can watch the video here.
Image credit: Alef Aeronautics
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After years of waiting and many false starts, Formula E is finally going to debut its mid-race charging system, which will give cars a quick boost of energy charging at a rate much faster than current road cars can.
For years now, we’ve been hearing about FIA plans to introduce charging stops to electric racing.
In gas car racing, some series allow mid-race fueling and some don’t. The World Endurance Championship, which runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, obviously needs to fill up several times during the race. But Formula 1, which hosts shorter races, eliminated mid-race fueling in 2010.
Plans to bring mid-race charging to Formula E started in 2021, when the FIA started kicking around plans for an Electric GT racing series with 700kW charging.
But the FIA already had one electric racing series, Formula E, which had debuted in 2014. At the time, each driver had two cars, and would swap mid-race to a fresh car with new batteries.
Battery-swapping had been considered, but it would be too complicated to set up at temporary race facilities in city downtown areas, as many Formula E tracks are.
Then, in 2018, Formula E debuted a new “Gen 2” car which had a big enough battery not to need a charge mid-race, and later a “Gen 3” car in 2022, which had much stronger regenerative braking, capable of 600kW of braking power. Gen 3 also has an “Attack Mode” feature that lets cars unlock additional power for a short period each race, adding to strategy and mixing up the race order.
That 600kW charging ability could also be used for mid-race charging, so Formula E said that it was working on a system to allow for this. It announced that mid-race charging would come at some point in the 2023 season, but then pushed back those plans until 2024, and pushed them back again, this time with an uncertain date.
The issues involved building the charging system in temporary facilities and ensuring safety of the system (and of pit stops in general, which is always a concern when cars are driving rapidly near people). But after winter testing prior to this season, Formula E now says the system is ready to go.
So, once again, Formula E is ready to announce that mid-race charging is definitely, totally, positively, 100% certain at the upcoming Jeddah E-Prix, on February 14-15 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Formula E thinks that proving this high-power charging technology could help road cars to charge more quickly, which could have myriad benefits for electric cars in general.
The series is calling the system “Pit Boost,” and it will consist of a 34-second pit stop that provides around 10% additional charge to the cars (about 4kWh). While 10% isn’t a lot, 34 seconds is also not a lot of time. For comparison, one of the fastest-charging cars out there, the Ioniq 5, can charge from 10-80% in 18 minutes, which means 10% charge takes 2.5 minutes – five times as long as Formula E cars will manage the feat.
The stop will be mandatory for all drivers to take at some point in the race, and will mean new strategy options for drivers. Taking the stop means getting more energy, which means that your car won’t have to do as much energy saving to get to the end of the race – but it also means giving up your position on track, which can be hard to get back if you do it late in the race.
However, we’ve never seen it happen before, so it will be interesting to see what kind of strategic options develop.
If you’re interested in seeing how it turns out, tune in to the Jeddah E-Prix on February 14-15 to see what happens. It’s a doubleheader race weekend, with night races both on Saturday and Sunday, February 14-15, at 5pm UTC, 9am PST, 12pm EST, and 8pm local time. You can check out how to watch the race in your area by going to Formula E’s “Ways to Watch” section. In the US, Roku should be the most reliable way to watch.
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JackRabbit, the maker of pint-sized electric microbikes, is back with a new product designed to quickly recharge their batteries from pure, uncut photons mainlined into an e-bike directly from the sun. In true independent charging form, the Solar Charging Kit from JackRabbit keeps riders rolling even when there’s not a convenient AC outlet in sight.
Unveiled this week, the Solar Charging Kit consists of a single folding solar panel and a tiny voltage converter that is configured to output 42.0V, which is the exact voltage required by JackRabbit’s little e-bike batteries. There’s also an added USB-A and a USB-C charging port for powering other devices in addition to charging JackRabbit batteries.
“This Solar Charging Kit plugs directly into your bike,” explained the company, “letting you recharge without needing an outlet, but with a speed comparable to the charger that comes with the OG/OG2 (42V, 2A).”
That would mean the panel outputs around 80W of solar power, which the company says can recharge its batteries in just three hours. That fairly quick recharging speed is helped by the fact that JackRabbit’s batteries are a mere 151 Wh, or around a third of the size of most e-bike batteries.
If that sounds small, then you’re right – it is. But JackRabbit is all about going micro, offering barely 25 lb rideables that are easy to store and bring on adventures, even when they aren’t actually being ridden.
With small batteries that fit under the 160Wh limit for many airlines in the US, the batteries can be quickly charged and taken to the widest number of locations. And for riders that want to go further than a single 10-mile (16-km) battery will allow, extra batteries are small enough to fit a pants pocket. The company also offers much larger Rangebuster batteries, though they won’t pass by TSA and make it onto an airplane in your personal item.
It sounds like the Solar Chargking Kit should be able to charge up JackRabbit’s large RangeBuster batteries, though likely in more than three hours.
The $349 Solar Charging Kit is a bit pricier than building something similar yourself, but it’s also safer and more convenient than hacking together your own battery charger since it’s designed to work with JackRabbit’s batteries right out of the box.
Technically it’s only inteded for JackRabbit’s micro e-bikes (themselves technically seated scooters, even if they look and feel more like a typical bike), but it’d probably work for just about any 36V e-bike that requires 42.0V to charge.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen solar charging kits for electric bikes, and it’s a trend that is certainly appreciated by outdoors and camping enthusiasts, festival goers, or anyone who finds themself and their bike spending extended periods in the great, sunny outdoors.
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