# Alef Aeronautics Pitches $300,000 Flying Car as Tesla Roadster Adds Invite-Only Flight > Alef Aeronautics expects its first flying car next year at $300,000, while Tesla's Roadster with a full flight system starts production in 2028 and is invite-only. - Published: 2026-10-31T10:51:44+00:00 - Section: Product Launches - Author: News Desk - URL: https://newsforagent.com/news/2026-10-31/tesla-alef-flying-car-roadster - Source: [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/flying-cars-cost-timeline-tesla-roadster-alef-aeronautics-2026-10) ## Key takeaways - Alef Aeronautics expects its first flying car to be delivered next year at a cost of $300,000 with a $150 preorder deposit. - Tesla said its Roadster will start production in 2028, and the version with a full flight system will be invite-only. - Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny said the company has logged about 1,000 flights since it began building flying cars in 2015. Alef Aeronautics expects to deliver its first flying car next year at a cost of $300,000, with a $150 preorder deposit, as [Tesla](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/000036f/tesla) prepares a Roadster whose full flight system will be invite-only. Business Insider reported the plans after Alef posted a video of a test model hovering over a Tesla Cybertruck and an early-generation Roadster. ## Alef's Video and the Roadster Timeline Alef posted the video two days before Tesla's demonstration of its kickflipping Roadster, according to [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/flying-cars-cost-timeline-tesla-roadster-alef-aeronautics-2026-10). Jim Dukhovny, CEO of [Alef Aeronautics](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/0003twp/alef-aeronautics), said the company has been building flying cars since 2015 and has logged about 1,000 flights. "A lot of people now are aware of the Roadster, but we were already flying for five years," Dukhovny told Business Insider. He said Alef planned the video about a month before the Roadster demo, after reports indicated Tesla might debut a flying car. Tesla said its Roadster will start production in 2028, but the version that includes a full flight system will be invite-only. Tesla's website states the Roadster with acceleration thrusters requires a $250,000 deposit, and the company does not display the full price. Dukhovny said Alef hopes to deliver its first car by next year. He also said the cost is too high even for him: "I cannot afford it right now," he said, adding that at mass production and automotive scale it "should cost under $25,000." Dukhovny said flying cars will not take off from downtown streets. "You cannot take off from Market Street or land on Market Street," he said. "Not right now, not ever. You have to take off and land from places where it's allowed, but you don't have to build that." Alexandre Bayen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies advanced transportation systems, said the technology is not the challenge; building a reliable transit system with the cars is. "Thinking of this as a vehicle for mass transit in the near future is, I think, absolutely unrealistic," Bayen said. Dukhovny said early uses would serve people in remote locations, and Bayen said the technology could suit short commutes over water for people who can afford it. ## Tesla's Berlin Production Increase According to akta.pro [company records](https://akta.pro/company-data), Tesla announced a 20% production boost at its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg to 7,500 vehicles per week starting October 2026, with 1,000 additional vehicle production hires plus 1,500 for battery cell manufacturing. The same records list a June 2026 partnership with Sunrun and Renew Home to aggregate residential energy devices, including Tesla Powerwall, solar panels and smart thermostats, into a virtual power plant delivering 16+ GW of flexible energy capacity to data centers and utilities. ## Earlier Alef Flights and Production Tech Funding News reported in October 2026 that Alef flew its electric flying car over Tesla's Roadster on its 1,000th logged flight and called the Roadster the second flying car in history. The outlet reported that Alef holds 3,600 pre-orders worth $1 billion, with deposits starting at $150, and expects first deliveries by the end of 2026. Compositesworld reported in September 2026 that Alef began production of its Model A Ultralight, a composites-intensive flying car, in December 2025, with the vehicle to be hand-assembled in Silicon Valley and initial units going to early customers for testing. ## Tesla's 2028 Roadster Production Tesla said the Roadster will start production in 2028, and the version with a full flight system will be invite-only. Alef expects its first car to be delivered next year. ## Companies in this story - [Tesla company profile](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/000036f/tesla) · website: https://tesla.com - [Alef Aeronautics company profile](https://akta.pro/company-profiles/0003twp/alef-aeronautics) · website: https://alef.aero --- News for Agent · https://newsforagent.com/llms.txt