Posted on 07/03/2023 8:20:42 AM PDT by Twotone
A California company building a flying electric car is now taking preorders.
Alef Aeronautics’ flying car has been given a Special Airworthiness Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), meaning the company will be allowed to road/air test the car, the company said in a news release.
The fully-electric vehicle (with a hydrogen option for a higher price) is a low-speed vehicle that can be driven up to 200 miles on public roads and fits into a regular garage, but it can also launch vertically into the air with a flying range of 110 miles, according to Alef’s website.
The company’s “Model A” car “can fly forward above the obstacles until a desired destination is reached,” the San Mateo-based company says.
“The driver and the cabin are stabilized by a unique gimbaled rotating cabin design.”
Alef touts the car’s ability to avoid traffic, fly in any direction while giving a “cinematic 180 plus degree view for safe and enjoyable flight.”
Customers can preorder the vehicle, which can seat up to two people is expected to cost around $300,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
This has range anxiety written all over it.
Is it true the company has an order from Charles Lindbergh IV for one? Gonna call it the Spirit of San Francisco? Going to fly to Paris, if there is a Paris when the plane is ready?
/s
“Will they let anyone with a drivers license fly this?”
They need a pilot’s license.
How high can it fly? What makes it fly? I’ll believe it when I see one flying overhead on the highway and not a minute before.
Big Sky theory
Works for me
Cops will have to get anti-aircraft guns.
That’s cool but there is no way I would try to fly it. The last time I flew my drone it crashed into the side of the house across the street..........LOL!
Can you fly it to the Titanic?
The fully-electric vehicle is a low-speed vehicle that can be driven up to 200 miles on public roads and fits into a regular garage, but it can also launch vertically into the air with a flying range of 110 miles
Those numbers are suspect.
That’s because you understand at least basic physics, engineering, and math, unlike anyone who buys into this fantasy.
What kind of armament can be mounted? (In addition to one passenger-weight worth of rocks that can be dropped) Seems like a great adjunct to the hoopty for dealers, just drop in and pop right out of the hood-du-jour.
Of course the cops will need to buy some soon.
Hilarious!
Round trip to Piggly Wiggly. Will a breathalyzer test be involved?
Does it fold up into a briefcase?
What lands in the desert stays in the desert, no juice.
“Do some of those guys sound, dare I say it, Russian...?”
Sound more Ukrainian than Russian, at least to me.
“Regenerative braking!”
LOL! I was thinking about that, actually. 100% efficient regenerative braking would take care of both the ‘lifting’ of an EV when it goes up a hill (by collecting back the energy when going downhill) and the energy used to accelerate forward (by collecting back the energy when slowing down or braking). So, with 100% efficient regen, you’d only have friction, tire, and air resistance losses. Obviously you still have significant losses from your drive/battery system, since nothing is 100% efficient - but you still go a long way, on relatively little battery energy in an EV.
Then I try to apply the same to this contraption, and you cannot get a damn thing back! Just doesn’t add up.
“Do some of those guys sound, dare I say it, Russian...?”
Not that’s FUNNY. I was only claiming Ukrainian because I’m against World War 3, not because I have any clue as to how to differentiate between the two...but I see in Post 14 that I was on to something!
“That’s because you understand at least basic physics, engineering, and math, unlike anyone who buys into this fantasy.”
I also think “Harrier”, and I do get that this contraption weighs far less and has much lower performance, but even so, a Harrier has to literally BLAST a jet engine to get off the ground and it sucking HUGE amounts of a much more energy-dense fuel than a battery, that being jet fuel.
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