Updated
For a few seconds, the Tesla Roadster looked less like a car than a scene from a science-fiction movie. At its long-awaited unveiling in Texas, the electric supercar accelerated up a towering, backward-curving ramp, clung to it upside down and then launched into the air before flipping and landing. The spectacular demonstration was livestreamed, and the next-generation Roadster was physically there not a computer-generated clip.
“Flying cars are real,” Elon Musk declared after the stunt. Tesla vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy also celebrated the successful demonstration. The moment delivered the otherworldly payoff Musk had teased for years: a car climbing where gravity seemed to say it shouldn’t, then breaking free of the ramp and soaring through the air.
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The technology behind the upside-down drive
The Roadster’s apparent grip on the inverted ramp may have come from a fan-based suction system beneath the car. The Wall Street Journal reported that Moravy described the system as a way to increase grip and downforce.
The brief airborne maneuver, meanwhile, revived years of speculation about the optional SpaceX package and its cold-gas thrusters. The event showed the stunt, but the precise mechanics behind every part of it have not been fully explained publicly.
That distinction matters: the demonstration was real, but it doesn’t mean the Roadster can fly freely over traffic like an aircraft. What viewers saw was a controlled stunt at a SpaceX test site not proof of a road-ready flying car.
Tesla has discussed thrusters that could help the vehicle hover or make short hops, but questions about the system’s final design and real-world use remain.
The Roadster’s spectacle comes after nearly nine years of delays. First unveiled in 2017, the second-generation model was once expected to arrive in 2020. Tesla now plans to put it into production in 2028, according to The Verge.
The company previously advertised a 620-mile range and a starting price of $200,000, while Musk has claimed the car could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in less than a second. Those figures still need to be measured against a production vehicle.
The ramp made the reveal unforgettable. Whether the Roadster can turn that jaw-dropping leap into a feature customers can actually use is a much bigger question and one Tesla still has to answer.