Tesla shows long-awaited Roadster in Texas flight demonstration, says production will begin in 2028
At a livestreamed event at a SpaceX site in Texas, Tesla presented its delayed Roadster, with one version using compressed-air thrusters to flip and fly.
After years of delays, Tesla presented the next-generation Roadster sports car on the night of Thursday, 15 October (US time), CBS News reported. The venue was a SpaceX test site in Texas, and viewers could watch the event live on Tesla’s X account.
As CBS News described the demonstration, the car shot up a curving ramp, spent a moment inverted, left the ramp’s end airborne, turned through 180 degrees and came down on its wheels. In Axios’s account of the live show, the vehicle drove inverted, did backflips and took to the air.
The car on display
Axios said engineers from both Tesla and SpaceX worked together on the two-seater electric sports car. Instead of rocket fuel, it relies on thrusters fed by highly compressed air, and a fan system under the body draws the vehicle down towards the road surface. CBS News reported Musk as saying that “ultra high-pressure air tanks” on board lift the car off the ground.
- Acceleration claim: 0–60 mph (about 0–97 km/h) in 0.8 seconds, quicker than any production car according to Tesla (Axios)
- Speed claim: more than 230 mph (about 370 km/h), with Musk targeting “half the speed of sound” (Axios)
- Models: Tesla lists three Roadster versions, and the one that flies has no approval for use on public roads (Axios)
- When it will be built: Musk gave 2028 as the start of production (CBS News, Axios)
- Not revealed: the price, the range on a charge and the flight duration of the flying version (Axios)
What Musk said
According to CBS News, Musk declared: “Flying cars are real.” He called the effort a joint venture of “the world’s best car company” and “the world’s best rocket company”. CBS News reported that ahead of the stunts, he warned that a good outcome “is not guaranteed”, while adding that “it will probably work”. Axios quoted him as saying that in the event of failure, “we’re at a safe distance”, and conceding that this is “not necessarily a safety optimized car.”
How we got here
Tesla first revealed the second-generation Roadster in 2017, and its arrival has been pushed back on several occasions. In the view of CBS News, the flying-car industry has been held back by technical and regulatory obstacles, though better batteries and electric motors have lifted interest. Axios observed that Tesla is pitching the Roadster as a car people drive themselves, at a time when Musk is championing a self-driving future.
The reports did not describe any immediate reaction in Tesla shares after the event. No India price or availability for the Roadster has been announced by Tesla.
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