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There are a lot of things you could say about Elon Musk.
That’s certainly true about him personally, but even if we just stick to Musk as CEO of Tesla, it’s complicated. On the one hand, there’s the fact that he has accomplished things most people would have never even tried. On the other hand, he has a habit of overpromising to the point that it’s hard to take him seriously.
But one thing that has always been true is that Musk has an unusual ability to convince people that something that seems completely impossible is just an engineering problem waiting to be solved. And, of course, he’s the only person who can solve it.
Sometimes, we end up with truly incredible feats like landing a reusable rocket on a floating barge in the ocean. Other times, whatever he promised takes years longer than expected to deliver. And sometimes, as with Tesla’s new Roadster, it’s a little bit of both.
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On Thursday, Tesla finally unveiled the next-generation Roadster. It’s been almost nine years since Musk first said that the company would bring back a new version of the car that started it all for the company. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s worth watching, if for no other reason than, apparently, Tesla has built a car that can fly.
To be clear, I’m not talking about how fast it is, though it is very quick. Tesla demonstrated the Roadster accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in just 0.81 seconds, which is just ridiculous.
What I mean when I say it can fly is that the Roadster literally flew through the air, using compressed-air thrusters built in collaboration with SpaceX. It even drove up a vertical ramp, flipped upside down, and returned to the ground.