Tesla’s long-delayed Roadster finally made an entrance — by flying off a ramp.
At a livestreamed event Thursday night, the sports car climbed a curved ramp until it was upside down, launched into the air, flipped, and landed on its wheels, apparently aided by thrusters beneath the vehicle.
“Well, it worked,” Elon Musk said during the livestream.
Musk said Tesla and SpaceX engineers collaborated on the car, which uses high-pressure air and thrusters to lift itself off the ground. Tesla also showed a recorded demonstration in which the Roadster reached 60 mph in 0.81 seconds.
While the legality of such a device on public roads remains in question, the tech world is reacting to Musk’s new creation with awe.
Here is what the leading voices in business and tech are saying about the new Roadster.
Jason Calacanis
Angel investor Jason Calacanis said in an X post that the videos of the flying car looked like “science fiction,” and they’re real, although they don’t seem to be.
He seemed enthused by the demonstration, asking that while the car was only airborne for a couple of seconds, “what if it could keep you in the air for five minutes? Or ten? Or 30?”
Gene Munster
Gene Munster, the managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management and a longtime tech analyst, wrote his two takeaways from the Roadster event on X.
First, that “it was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers.”
And the second, that it signaled Musk’s ambition to merge his two publicly traded companies, SpaceX and Tesla.
John Carmack
John Carmack, the former CTO of Meta’s virtual reality division, politely rejected the flying car.
“That demo involved a non trivial chance of embarrassing failure!” he wrote on X.
He added, “I’m only going for the baseline model. At this point in my life, rocket bunny hops are out of my comfort zone.”
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