Flying Car By US Startup Attracts Tesla Investor: Report

The concept of a flying car is not new - inventors have been trying to add wings to wheeled motor vehicles for decades, with only limited success.

The concept of a flying car is not new - inventors have tried to add wings to wheeled vehicles for decades, but only with limited success.

Jim Duchovny, founder of Aleph Aeronautics, hopes to change that equation. ca his-

A company based has come up with a new approach to taking ground vehicles to the sky and has attracted at least one prominent venture capitalist.

Model Aleph, who just came out of a seven-year pregnancy,

It looks less like the flying cars in the old movies and more like the flying taxi of Bruce Willis in the 1997 movie The Fifth Element.

The unusual appearance - which features a body that flips on its side to become a wing after take-off - is just one of the aspects that attracted Tim Draper,

An early investor in Elon Musk's Tesla Inc and SpaceX, Draper Associates V Fund backed Alef with $3 million in seed money.

After the Draper made a modest initial investment, he said in an email, "I invested more (money) when I saw they had made a small prototype drone that did exactly what they told me it would."

"The design is unusual. The sides of the car become the wings when the plane moves horizontally."

Headquartered in Santa Clara in the heart of Silicon Valley, Aleph designed the Model A -

A fast-looking but relatively conventional electric vehicle - with the ability to take off and land vertically. And of course flying.

Dukhovny, CEO of Alef Corporation,

He hasn't built a car yet. He is a computer scientist, software designer, sci-fi scientist and serial entrepreneur who once ran an online gaming site called Intel Intellectual Casino.

In an interview, he said the handcrafted Model A is set to sell for $300,000, with production and initial deliveries scheduled for 2025. That price,

By the way, it's the same planned starting price for Cadillac's flagship electric vehicle brand, Celestiq, which should start reaching customers in early 2024, according to Cadillac's parent company, General Motors.

One of the features that distinguishes the Model A from previous versions of flying cars is how it flies. As soon as you lift off the ground,

The cockpit rotates and the carbon-fiber body flips on its side, then moves forward, propelled by a set of propellers. Most recent attempts by competitors are similar to giant drones - not able to travel with wheels on the ground.

"The whole car is the wing," said Dukhovny.

A has an estimated driving range of 200 miles (322 km) and a flight range of 100 miles.

Dukhovny has an even bigger trick up his sleeve for the 2030s: a Model Z sedan, with a flight range of 200 miles and a driving range of 400 miles — and an expected price tag of $35,000.

"This is no more complicated than the Toyota Corolla," he said.

"Our goal is to make sure they have the same price."

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