We define a continuum percolation model that provides a collection of random ellipses on the plane and study the behavior of the covered set and the vacant set, the one obtained by removing all ellipses. Our model generalizes a construction that appears implicitly in the Poisson cylinder model of Tykesson and Windisch. The ellipses model has a parameter $alpha > 0$ associated with the tail decay of the major axis distribution; we only consider distributions $rho$ satisfying $rho[r, infty) asymp r^{-alpha}$. We prove that this model presents a double phase transition in $alpha$. For $alpha in (0,1]$ the plane is completely covered by the ellipses, almost surely. For $alpha in (1,2)$ the vacant set is not empty but does not percolate for any positive density of ellipses, while the covered set always percolates. For $alpha in (2, infty)$ the vacant set percolates for small densities of ellipses and the covered set percolates for large densities. Moreover, we prove for the critical parameter $alpha = 2$ that there is a non-degenerate interval of density for which the probability of crossing boxes of a fixed proportion is bounded away from zero and one, a rather unusual phenomenon. In this interval neither the covered set nor the vacant set percolate, a behavior that is similar to critical independent percolation on $mathbb{Z}^2$.
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