Most car launches involve a spinning platform and some dry ice. This one involved a rocket test site. Tesla has unveiled a new Roadster that can fly, flip and get from 0 to 60 mph in a claimed 0.81 seconds, with Elon Musk promising its mix of rocket thrusters and ground-hugging fans will make it just as extraordinary around corners.

Where It Happened

The two-seater was revealed at SpaceX’s Rocket Test and Development Center in McGregor, Texas. Demonstrations of its airborne abilities were followed by an acceleration run that beat Musk’s target of reaching 60 mph in under a second. He says the production version will be quicker still, with manufacturing now penciled in for 2028.

Compressed Air, Not Rocket Fuel

The car is a Tesla-SpaceX collaboration that uses compressed air rather than rocket fuel, with 10 thruster nozzles enabling maneuvers well beyond the usual car-launch routine. Beneath the body, a fan system sucks the car toward the road for 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.

Not Available Everywhere

Tesla says the rocket-assisted features are optional and won’t be offered everywhere, and its UK website confirms the Roadster will be left-hand drive only. Musk 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.”

A Show Staged Like a Launch

SpaceX’s 4,000-acre test site hosted the unveiling, with a Raptor rocket-engine static fire as pre-show entertainment. Musk promised something beyond what audiences had seen in films, while admitting the demonstrations carried risk.

“This is the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX engineers working closely together to make something that you haven’t seen in any movie, better than any James Bond car, better than... well, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” The project grew as the teams worked together: “And then things kind of built upon themselves and we’re like, well, maybe we could do a little more of this and roll more of that.”

A Warning Before Liftoff

“By the way, success is not guaranteed,” Musk told the audience. “So, I mean that. It’ll probably work, but if it doesn’t work, we’re at a safe distance.” He added: “And excitement is 100% guaranteed.”

After the first demonstration, Tesla vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy said: “Well, it worked. Flying cars are real.” Musk suggested going further: “Yeah. I mean, that was just a little flight. Let’s do a longer flight.”

The Kickflip

The next maneuver somersaulted the car over a Tesla Semi truck and the current car lineup. Chief designer Franz von Holzhausen borrowed from skateboarding: “Tony Hawk would be proud. We call that the kickflip.” Musk said: “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen that before.” Moravy added: “I think we could have cleared more than our whole fleet.”

How It Steers in Midair

Alongside the main rear thrusters are separate ones that control the car’s angle. “So the car has obviously attitude control thrusters and main thrusters in the rear,” Musk said. “So, it can basically fly like a rocket and it could do rolls, it could do crazy gymnastics, whatever you want really.”

He offered a caveat for prospective owners: “Now I should say that this is not necessarily a safety optimized car, but it takes the fun meter to 11 out of 10.”

No Human on Board

No human drove the stunt demonstration. A Starman figure appeared, echoing the one aboard the original Roadster sent to space on a SpaceX test flight. Moravy said: “Just to be clear, that is not a real human.” Musk joked: “Well, it is technically autonomous for this demo to make sure we don’t kill anyone!”

The Air Tanks

The flying hardware runs on two high-pressure air tanks. “We had the rockets we borrowed from SpaceX technology,” Moravy said. “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.”

Four rear thrusters alone produce more than 80kN of thrust, according to Tesla, with air leaving faster than the speed of sound. The car can refill its own tanks. “It’s using an advanced ultra-high pressure air tank. So, the car can recharge its air tank – it’s not like you need special propellant or anything like that,” Musk said. “It literally is just going to puff itself up and be able to do these manoeuvres whenever you’d like.”

The 0.81-Second Run

Asked about his 0-60 target, Musk said: “Well, you got to break one second, obviously.” When Moravy referred to a one-second goal, Musk corrected him: “Well, I said less than one second.”

The team ran the car on the test pad, though getting a usable time took a moment. “We didn’t have a whole lot of room out on the pad, so we had to cut it short, but do we have a live time?” Moravy said. An early reading was dismissed: “I think we broke the system. We didn’t do it 0.17 seconds.” Musk replied: “Yeah. Okay. 0.1 seconds. I think we’d destroy the human if we did that.”

More to Come

The announced figure was 0.81 seconds. “As you increase force and decrease mass, you get more acceleration,” Musk 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.”

Upside-Down Grip

The fan system is meant to give grip that doesn’t depend on air flowing over the body at speed. By creating suction underneath, Tesla says it can press the car to the road even at low speed. The car proved it by being driven upside down up what looked like a Hot Wheels track at the start of the event, before leaving the track, flipping upright and landing.

Moravy said: “To do that, we have a fan suction system on the bottom of the car that can pull up to two Gs in order to make the car go upside down. And then we borrowed some technology from SpaceX to do the rest.” Musk quipped: “Yeah. I mean, this car really sucks.”

“Now you might say how often do you want to stick upside down in a car?” he continued. “Maybe not that often, but it actually has an actual benefit on the track or just driving where the downforce of the car means you can corner incredibly well.”

Two Modes, Adjustable Aero

The car has high-downforce and low-drag configurations, and the suction system changes with speed. Moravy said the aim was greater cornering grip plus better traction under acceleration. “We put the fan sucker system on there to give us traction to be able to corner at greater than two gs and accelerate with all the traction that goes beyond the tires, which is typically 1.26 gs.”

“It can suck the car down at low speed to give us traction when we need it. And at high speed, we’ll open up the front and rear parts of the suction system to create even more flow underneath the car,” he explained. An adjustable rear wing also changes angle automatically based on the downforce the car calculates it needs.

Design and Cabin

The design takes inspiration from the SR-71 aircraft. “It’s a nice clean aesthetic. Like I said, we leaned into a little bit of some of the aerospace aesthetics. It’s a two seater,” von Holzhausen said. Seats are molded into the chassis to save weight. “We leaned into lightweight as well, so the seats are molded into the chassis. It’s a steer-by-wire system.” There is a steering yoke, electronic brakes and throttle controls.

The rear diffuser houses the fans and thrusters. “The car can transform because we wanted to make a pretty car, but also a car that could deliver amazing downforce,” von Holzhausen said.

The Last Manual Tesla

Musk said the Roadster is meant to be the exception to Tesla’s autonomous future. “This will actually be long-term the only manually driven car that Tesla makes,” he said. “And so if you’re going to have only one manually driven car, let’s take it to the limits and way past the limits.”

Twenty Years On

The event marked 20 years since the original Roadster was introduced. Von Holzhausen recalled its job of proving an electric car could be enjoyable, usable and capable of meaningful distances. “They were real cars. And look at how far we’ve come in those 20 years.”

For Moravy it was personal. “To be honest, the Roadster is a reason I came to Tesla. I came here and we had a master plan to build an EV that proved that we could make a cheaper EV that people could afford with Model S. And then we built Model 3 and Model Y.” He recalled the earlier collaboration: “But the last time we had Roadster and SpaceX together, we put Elon’s into orbit.” This time, the aim is to put rocket technology into a car customers can buy.

A Long Road to Production

Tesla first showed the replacement as a four-seater in November 2017 and initially said deliveries would begin in 2020. A 2028 start would land about 11 years after that unveiling.

Price and Specs Still Open

Tesla hasn’t announced a price. Its US reservation page requires an initial $5,000 credit-card payment followed by a $45,000 bank transfer within 10 days. That $50,000 is a reservation payment, not the final price. Musk gave 2028 as the production date. Battery capacity, range and charging speed weren’t discussed.

On top speed, Moravy said: “The car can go over 230 miles per hour. Hopefully we can get even faster.” Musk replied: “Definitely much faster than that.” Asked how fast, he said: “You got to crack halfway to the speed of sound, I think.” Moravy answered: “Challenge accepted, sir.”

One More Jump?

Musk is also considering another flying display, involving the Snake River Canyon and a fresh attempt at the jump associated with stunt rider Evel Knievel. He acknowledged he didn’t know whether it was possible, then suggested: “Let’s give it another shot.”

Musk had his own summary of the new car: “Where we’re going, you don’t need tyres.”