Here is the first electric flying car, it will arrive in 2025 and will cost 300,000 euros
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Alef Aeronautics unveiled the images of the first flying car, the Model A. In development since 2016, it should start flying in 2025.
The flying car has long been part of the collective imagination: from Back to the Future to Star Trek via Harry Potter , Blade Runner and The Fifth Element , all these films have made us dream by showing absolutely incredible cars, with which it was possible to move through the air. A society in which we would all travel aboard these flying machines has therefore been dreamed of for several decades already.
In 1917, a man named Glenn Curtis first materialized this idea with his Autoplane, a carflying which, even if it finally made what looked like big jumps rather than a long complete flight, had all the same the merit of representing for the first time what these cars of tomorrow could look like.
A flying car “like in the movies”?
This year, it was finally a Californian company, called Alef Aeronautics, which presented its version of the carflying. This could then become the first successful flying car model, since the company is already announcing that the first prototypes will be delivered to customers at the end of 2025.
However, if the first images of this car are enticing and seem to show a car actually moving in the air, the president of the company Alef Aeronautics, Jim Dukhovny, has certain reservations about a real long flight.
“The driver will use the vehicle like a car, and jump over obstacles when necessary,” he explains. This exceptional car should therefore not meet all our wildest expectations, but would still be a real first step towards the construction of machines of this type.
This Model A is a flying electric car, which can carry one to two people, and almost looks like a drone, thanks to its propellers. It would have a range of 320 kilometers on the road, while it should be able to fly 177 kilometers. This innovative technology has a price, however, since the Model A costs no less than 300,000 dollars, or roughly the same sum in euros, including taxes. Not everyone will therefore be able to immediately experience this unique transport experience.
For the moment, no video revealing the machine in flight has been presented, even though the company claims to have been testing the capabilities of its product since 2019.
However, this does not prevent the company from obtaining the approval of the authorities, since it recently received certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is none other than the government agency in charge of regulations and controls concerning civil aviation in the United States.
Thanks to this precious authorization, the Model A can now fly legally in the dedicated airspace, which represents a giant step in the history of flying cars since it is the first time that this right has been granted to a car, fully electric flywheel.
This also confirms that the first flights will indeed be able to take place in 2025 and that the first public flight demonstrations will be held soon. More than 440 people have already booked, in order to have the chance to live this unique experience.
Even if the time when the whole of society will move through the air still seems far away, the imminent arrival of this flying car, just like the recent Air Scooter, presented at Vivatech and which should see the light of day in 2024 , therefore leaves predicting an ever more high-tech future and innovative.
However, many questions remain unanswered about this machine, since its specific technical capabilities are still unknown (the company president Mr. Dukhovny, however, hinted that the car could not, for its first versions, reach high speed), and that the regulation of these racing cars which could soon cross the sky is still too vague.
Indeed, this car is for the moment designed to take off in an urban environment (for example when the streets of a city are congested, to avoid slowing down), the question of air traffic then remains unresolved.
Watch this video to learn more.
[ Via GQ France]