Tesla has unveiled a new Roadster that can fly, flip and get from 0 to 60mph in a claimed 0.81 seconds, with Elon Musk promising the electric sports car’s combination of rocket thrusters and ground-hugging fans will make it just as extraordinary around corners.
The two-seater was revealed at SpaceX’s Rocket Test and Development Center in McGregor, Texas, where demonstrations of its airborne abilities were followed by an acceleration run that beat Musk’s target of reaching 60mph in less than a second.
He says the production version will be quicker still, with the start of manufacturing now pencilled in for 2028
It’s collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX that uses compressed air rather than rocket fuel, with 10 thruster nozzles helping the Roadster perform manoeuvres beyond the usual car-launch routine. Beneath the body, a fan system sucks the car towards the road to improve grip, with Tesla claiming cornering forces greater than 2g.
“You can corner like it looks like you’re breaking physics because the car sticks to the ground so hard. So, acceleration, cornering, it’s going to crush every track record that has ever existed,” Musk said.
Tesla says the rocket-assisted features are optional and won’t be available everywhere, while Tesla’s UK website confirms the Roadster will be left-hand drive only.
Musk himself acknowledged the car might not be legal in every market.
“This will be an actual car that’s on the roads. I’m not sure it’s necessarily legal in all jurisdictions, but there will be such a car that someone can own,” he said. “So, it’s going to be pretty wild that you can have a rocket car.”
The setting gave a fair indication of what was coming. SpaceX’s 4,000-acre test site hosted the unveiling, with a Raptor rocket-engine static fire forming part of the pre-show entertainment.
Musk explained: “Well, it is technically autonomous for this demo to make sure we don’t kill anyone!”
The flying hardware is fed by two high-pressure air tanks, with Moravy keen to explain just how much air Tesla has managed to pack into the car. It’s stored under pressure, ready to be released through the thrusters.
Moravy said: “We had the rockets we borrowed from SpaceX technology. You talked about the carbon overlay pressure vessels. I just want to tell everyone because I’m a spec guy, there’s two of them in the car. They are a total of 600 liters. It’s about 250 kilos of air, and we have 10 nozzles to do all that work.”An initial result was dismissed, with Moravy saying: “I think we broke the system. We didn’t do it 0.17 seconds.” Musk responded: “Yeah. Okay. 0.1 seconds. I think we’d destroy the human if we did that.”
The figure eventually announced was 0.81 seconds. Musk then said there was more performance to come as the car developed. “As you increase force and decrease mass, you get more acceleration,” he said. “So, the production car will actually do better than that – we’ll just ride the limit of don’t detach the retina of the human in the car.”
Moravy claimed: “It’ll do a half a mile in the time that other cars can do a quarter mile.”
Away from the straight-line performance, the fan system is intended to give the Roadster grip that doesn’t depend only on air flowing over its body at speed. By creating suction underneath, Tesla says it can press the car towards the road even when it’s travelling slowly.
And that was proven by the car being driven up what looked like a hot wheels track upside down at the start of the event – before it then went off the track, flipped up the right way and came in to land.
Watch the video here