UNBELIEVABLE! Tesla’s Roadster Hits 60 MPH in Under a Second, Flies, & Jumps a Semi

Leave a CommentUNBELIEVABLE! Tesla’s Roadster Hits 60 MPH in Under a Second, Flies, & Jumps a SemiInnovation, Technology, Transport

Elon Musk promised the “most exciting, whether it works or not, demo ever.” On Thursday night in Texas, Tesla delivered one that drove up a curved ramp until it hung upside down, fired thrusters, flipped in midair and landed on its wheels.

“Turns out the future does have flying cars,” Musk said at the unveiling, held at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, outside Waco, and streamed live, according to Fox Business.

The new Tesla Roadster is part sports car, part rocket. Tesla says some versions go from 0 to 60 mph in under a second, numbers that would beat anything on the market today.

What happened on the ramp

In the first demonstration, the Roadster raced up a curved ramp. A fan-powered suction system held it to the surface until the car was fully inverted. Then it fired its thrusters, launched off the ramp, flipped and set down on the pavement.

In the second, the car leapt over a lineup of Tesla vehicles while moving: a Cybercab, a Cybertruck, a Tesla Semi, a Model Y and a Model 3, TechCrunch reported. It flipped in midair and landed on the other side.

“Flying cars are real,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering.

How the thrusters work

The trick is compressed gas. The Roadster uses cold-gas thrusters that Tesla developed with SpaceX, Fox Business reported. Moravy said the top version has 10 thrusters connected to 600 liters of compressed air, and the tank can be refilled.

Tesla says it packed “every usable void” in the car with carbon-fiber pressure vessels to store that gas, according to TechCrunch. More gas means more time in the air.

The point is to beat the one limit every car faces. “Every car on the road today is limited by one thing: tire grip,” Tesla wrote on X. The company says the thrusters push with four to five times the force the tires can handle, so the car can accelerate harder than traction alone allows.

The suction system is a feat of its own. Tesla says its fans pull enough air from under the car to hold it upside down, even when it’s sitting still, Electrek reported.

Three versions

Tesla laid out three trims after the event:

  • Performance: two seats, active aerodynamics and the suction system. Tesla calls it “road ready” and lists 0 to 60 in under 1.6 seconds. Reservation: $50,000.
  • Thrust: two seats, with rear-mounted thrusters. Tesla calls it “race ready” and lists 0 to 60 in under 0.9 seconds. Reservation: $250,000.
  • Rocket: a single seat with thrusters all around the car for lift and spin. It’s invite-only, with 0 to 60 in under 0.59 seconds, and Tesla’s site says it is not approved for public roads.

Tesla quotes more than 300 miles of range and a top speed above 230 mph. The design, which Tesla says drew on the SR-71 spy plane and the F-35 fighter jet, uses magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber throughout.

“This will be the actual car that’s on the roads,” Musk said, according to TechCrunch.

The wait

Tesla first showed a Roadster prototype in 2017 and said deliveries would start in 2020. Musk now says production will begin in 2028. No price for the car itself has been announced, only the reservation amounts.

Some specs have changed since 2017. Tesla originally promised a four-seat car with 620 miles of range, Electrek noted. The new car seats two at most and quotes about half that range. Musk himself has called the Roadster a halo car that isn’t likely to move Tesla’s revenue much.

Why it matters

Most of us will never drive a car that hangs from a ceiling. But the technology behind it is a big deal. Electrek’s Fred Lambert, who was skeptical of the trims, still called it the first time atmosphere-ready cold-gas thrusters, a ceiling-holding suction system and robot-driven wings have appeared in one car. Those wings run on the same actuators Tesla built for its Optimus humanoid robot.

And it was shown off by two American companies at a test site in Texas.

The bottom line

For years, critics wrote off Musk’s Roadster promises as hype. On Thursday, the car flipped upside down, jumped a semi and landed on a live stream. That’s not a slide deck. That’s engineering.

Buyers will have to wait until at least 2028, and the wildest versions won’t be street legal. But the demo is a reminder of what American builders can do when they’re free to take big swings. Rocket thrusters on a sports car sounded like science fiction last week. Now there’s a reservation page.