From Traffic Jams to Takeoff: Israel’s AIR ONE Flying Car Nears FAA Approval

CEO Rani Plaut touts many small electric motors, software control, and a whole-aircraft parachute as the path to mainstream personal flight

The world is full of traffic jams. But what if, one day soon, you could commute by flying your vehicle through the sky instead of being stuck in endless lines of cars?

An Israeli company called AIR is working to make that a reality. The startup is developing what it describes as a “flying car,” a two-seat, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it hopes will launch in the United States by this time next year.

Unlike traditional aircraft, AIR’s vehicle is designed for everyday use and individual ownership. The idea is to make daily personal travel as simple as driving a car: taking off and landing on any flat surface, and then folding its wings so it can fit into an ordinary parking spot.

Gil Charnes (lft)Rani Plaut (rt) (Maayan Hoffman)

The company is already seeking certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Why electric aviation?” asked AIR CEO Rani Plaut during a recent visit to the company’s headquarters in Pardes Hanna-Karkur. His answer was straightforward: “simplicity.”

“The motor is much simpler and smaller, so you can have a lot of simple and little motors instead of one big jet,” Plaut explained. “Once you have a lot of smaller motors, you can control them in the computer software. OK, so the control system is not based on push rods, cables, or hydraulics. It’s a computer command. The sustainability or green aspect is much better. Pollution is almost zero. It is also much easier to build.”

This is the same as Tesla is for the automotive sector—much fewer moving parts, actuators, and liquids

Pointing to the company’s AIR ONE signature aircraft, he said, “This is the same as Tesla is for the automotive sector—much fewer moving parts, actuators, and liquids.”

Safety, he emphasized, is a top priority. The AIR ONE is designed with high redundancy: four batteries and eight motors. Each battery powers two opposite motors, meaning the aircraft can lose half of its propellers or motors and still remain airborne.

“The aircraft will tell you that you are in a very dangerous situation, and it will land itself,” Plaut continued. “But you can lose a motor, you can lose the flight controller, you can lose a battery. You can lose any one of the critical components and still land safely.”

If the unthinkable happens, Plaut pointed to an additional safeguard. If all four batteries fail, a built-in parachute can be deployed to lower the entire aircraft safely to the ground.

You can lose the flight controller, you can lose a battery. You can lose any one of the critical components and still land safely.

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He contrasted AIR’s approach with that of others in the industry.

“The big change between AIR and the other companies is that some companies are doing some manned drones, piloted drones, which is a very dangerous exercise,” he said. “You sit on a drone… You don’t need certification for such a thing if it’s under 250 pounds.”

Plaut is taking a different path. He is pursuing certification—and, more than that, he wants flying to become mainstream.

“There is a relationship between the product called a car and the universe—the engineers who designed it, the regulators who certify it, the users who operate it, and the maintenance person who does the maintenance,” Plaut explained. “My son is 19. He’s a driver. My father is 85. He’s also a driver. Not very good ones, but everything goes OK.”

Plaut believes the same kind of relationship can eventually extend to personal aircraft. Today, dozens of vehicles weighing around 1.5 tons drive side by side on the highway—everyone feels comfortable with it. He said this acceptance has less to do with technology and more to do with perception.

“People have a different relationship with airplanes,” he noted. “To date, pilots are highly skilled people.” But, he added, that could change.

Not every plane needs to be as complex as advanced fighter jets like the F-35 or the F-22 Raptor, which require trained fighter pilots to operate.

“Humanity has learned how to design more simply, whether we are talking about boats, cars or airplanes,” Plaut said.

The AIR ONE’s maximum weight is 1.2 tons. It can carry a payload of 550 pounds (about 250 kilograms)—roughly two people with light luggage or general cargo. An autonomous version is also in development, built on the same core infrastructure, though the unmanned vehicle has no seats or screens.

AIR has been collaborating with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and other defense ministries worldwide on the autonomous model. The goal is to improve deliveries between defense points without risking human lives—at a fraction of the cost of using helicopters.

The company’s marketing manager, Gil Charnes, echoed Plaut’s emphasis on practicality. He highlighted how the aircraft’s wings fold back, taking up no more space than a large Ford.

“You can basically fold it back, put it in your garage and store it away,” he told The Media Line.

According to Charnes, AIR has already amassed a waiting list of more than 2,600 aircraft, primarily from private customers in the United States. Buyers envision using them for commuting, recreational flying, fishing trips, and even searching for fossils on large ranches.

He recalled the excitement when the AIR ONE debuted at the Kentucky Derby in 2022, where crowds gathered to learn more and place orders.

You can basically fold it back, put it in your garage and store it away

“That gained a lot of traction, and since then, we’ve gone viral on the internet,” Charnes said.

The aircraft is now progressing toward certification through the FAA’s MOSAIC (Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification) rule. This framework—which takes effect next month—updates the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category and Sport Pilot privileges. It also expands the types of aircraft eligible for certification as LSAs to include eVTOLs like the AIR ONE.

As for cost, Plaut explained that the unmanned version is currently priced at more than $1 million, though he expects the price to drop to a few hundred thousand dollars for smaller models. The manned version, he said, should also be priced in the hundreds of thousands, since “at the core is this automotive-based technology.”

And when will Israelis—long plagued by traffic jams and car accidents—gain access? Charnes said Israel usually follows US certification quickly.

“The second we get FAA, Israel will follow, and then you can have one too,” he said.