The flying car just got a little closer to reality.
Tesla’s long-awaited Roadster drove upside down along a curved ramp, launched into the air, rolled 180 degrees using bursts of compressed air and landed on its wheels during a livestreamed demonstration Thursday at SpaceX’s rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas, near Waco. Moments later, it used its thrusters to leap over a lineup of Tesla vehicles, including a Cybertruck and a Tesla Semi.
“Turns out the future does have flying cars,” CEO Elon Musk wrote on X afterward.
Getting one into customers’ garages is another story.
When Tesla first unveiled its second-generation Roadster in November 2017, flying wasn’t part of the pitch. The company promised an electric supercar that could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, seat four people and travel 620 miles on a single charge. Tesla began taking $50,000 reservations—or $250,000 for one of 1,000 limited Founders Series cars—and targeted a 2020 launch.
That date came and went. Musk has repeatedly treated the sports car as a lower priority than Tesla’s other projects, while also blaming supply chain shortages for earlier delays. On Tesla’s October 2024 earnings call, he thanked “the long-suffering deposit holders of the Tesla Roadster” and explained that the car was “not just the icing on the cake, it’s the cherry on the icing on the cake.”
Tesla now says production will begin in 2028—eight years later than originally promised.
Three versions, one that flies
The Roadster that took the stage Thursday is a radically redesigned car, built around the SpaceX thruster package Musk first floated in 2018. It comes in three versions: Performance, a “road ready” two-seater with active aerodynamics and a fan-driven suction system; Thrust, a two-seater that adds rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters for sub-one-second acceleration to 60 mph; and Rocket, an invitation-only single-seater with 10 thrusters arranged around the car that can briefly take flight.
Tesla engineering vice president Lars Moravy said the thrusters run on about 600 liters of rechargeable compressed air. Tesla claims a top speed of more than 230 mph.
The redesign also comes with compromises. The original four-seat sports car now seats no more than two, and Tesla now promises a range of more than 300 miles—less than half the 620 miles it touted in 2017.
The airborne spectacle was a prototype demonstration, not a test of a production-ready vehicle. It showed only brief aerial maneuvers, not sustained flight, and Tesla hasn’t said how long or how far the Roadster can actually stay airborne.
Tesla states on its website that the Rocket version is “not approved for public road use.” It’s also unclear which regulator, if any, would oversee its flying features. The Federal Aviation Administration told CBS News and Politico that the vehicle doesn’t meet its definition of an aircraft, meaning the agency wouldn’t need to certify it as airworthy. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which oversees vehicle safety, largely relies on automakers to certify that their cars meet federal standards. The Transportation Department said in a statement that NHTSA “will continue to monitor the situation.”
Musk, for his part, isn’t pitching the Roadster as a safe car. “This is not necessarily a safety-optimized car, OK?” he said during the reveal.
A halo car, not a moneymaker
Securing a spot in line won’t come cheap. Tesla is asking for a $50,000 reservation payment for the Performance model and a whopping $250,000 for Thrust. The flying Rocket version is available by invitation only, with no publicly disclosed reservation fee. Tesla has yet to announce final prices for any of the three versions, and it hasn’t said what will happen to customers who put down deposits on the 2017 version.
Despite the hefty reservation payments, the Roadster is unlikely to become a major revenue source for Tesla. Unlike its mass-market vehicles, the niche sports car won’t sell in large volumes. At Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting, Musk said the Roadster was “definitely not gonna be a huge contributor to revenue.” Wall Street agrees: The Roadster “will not move the volume or revenue needle,” Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives wrote in a research note, according to CBS News.
Its value may lie elsewhere. TechCrunch described the Roadster as a “halo car” for Tesla—a vehicle meant to showcase the company’s technological ambitions rather than a volume seller. The reveal also came days before Tesla reports third-quarter results, which analysts say matter far more to investors.
The last car you drive yourself
The Roadster also occupies a curious place in Tesla’s future. As the company shifts its focus toward autonomous driving and humanoid robots, Musk has said the Roadster will eventually be the only manually driven car Tesla makes. Yet Thursday’s demonstration had no one behind the wheel—just a mannequin in a SpaceX spacesuit, a nod to the “Starman” dummy that rode Musk’s original Roadster into space in 2018. Musk said the car operated autonomously for safety reasons.
For a company increasingly focused on taking humans out of the driver’s seat, the Roadster reminds us that driving can still be part of the attraction.
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