We were promised flying cars. On Thursday night, Tesla delivered something close, at least for a few seconds at a time.
At a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco, Tesla finally revealed its long-delayed next-generation Roadster. Instead of a normal product launch, the show felt more like a stunt reel. The car drove up a vertical ramp, hung upside down, launched itself over a row of five Teslas, barrel-rolled in mid-air and landed level.
https://twitter.com/StockMKTNewz/status/2110901259196842309
So, Does It Actually Fly?
Kind of. Let's be honest about what "flying" means here. This isn't a jet you'll take to work. The Roadster uses cold-gas thrusters, the same type of tech SpaceX uses to steer its rockets, to make short, controlled hops, flips and landings. Road & Track reports the system uses ten compressed-air nozzles, fed by an air tank that Musk says the car can refill on its own.
The ramp trick is the other big one. A fan suction system let the car drive up a vertical wall and stop upside down. Then it went back up, drove off the top, flipped itself with a burst of cold gas and used more thrusters to land. The show ended with a side flip from a standstill.
https://twitter.com/niccruzpatane/status/2110907804982841826
The Numbers Tesla Did Share
Road & Track says a timed run during the presentation clocked 0-60 in 0.81 seconds with the thrusters helping out. That's well past the 1.9-second claim Tesla made back in 2017. Tesla puts the top speed above 230 mph, but Musk said on stage the goal was "Mach .5, maybe a little higher."
What Tesla didn't share: price, horsepower, range and battery details. The Verge called the under-30-minute event "more like a stunt show than a product reveal."
On X, Tesla laid out the lineup. "Performance" is road-ready with two seats. "Thrust" adds rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters for 0-60 in under a second. According to Road & Track, Tesla's website lists the flipping "Rocket" version as invite-only and "not approved for public road use." So don't plan on hopping traffic on the 405.
The Long Road Here
This thing took its time. The Roadster was first teased in 2017 as a surprise at the Tesla Semi event. Musk said deliveries would start in 2020. Early buyers put down $50,000 deposits, or $250,000 for the Founders Series, and then they waited. And waited. A planned reveal on Oct. 1 was even pushed back because of the weather.
The design has changed a lot since then. The rounded 2017 shape is gone, replaced by an angular wedge closer to the Cybertruck and Cybercab. Tesla says it was inspired by the SR-71 and the F-35.
Musk now says production starts in 2028. He also called the Roadster "long term, the only manually-driven car that Tesla makes," which is quite a line from a company that has gone all in on self-driving.
Our Take
Is a backflipping supercar practical? Not even a little. Is it the most fun thing a car company has done in years? Absolutely. Tesla has missed plenty of Roadster deadlines, so 2028 deserves a healthy side-eye. But after nearly a decade of renderings and promises, they finally put a car in the air on a livestream, and it's hard not to grin about that.
