Tesla unveiled its new flying sports car, the Roadster, which the company had been teasing since last year. In a flawless demonstration, the vehicle leaped over five cars, including a large truck, and landed safely. Chief Executive Elon Musk declared that "the flying car is real."
Tesla ran the demonstration on the 15th at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas, with Musk and Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen in attendance. The two-seat Roadster is fitted with gas thrusters. Before the event, Musk joked that success was not guaranteed but that fun was 100% guaranteed. The demonstration went off without any mishaps.
With an invited audience watching, the Roadster climbed about halfway up a circular track that rose into the air like a roller coaster, then used its thrusters to descend upside down and land steadily on the ground. In a second run, the car charged toward a row of five vehicles, including a large truck, before firing its thrusters to vault over them and touch down on the other side.
The Roadster went from a standstill to 60 miles per hour, or about 97 kilometers per hour, in 0.81 seconds, beating the sub-one-second target Musk had set earlier. Top speed exceeds 230 mph, or about 370 kph, and Musk said the car could eventually surpass Mach 0.5, half the speed of sound.
The Roadster can fly like a rocket thanks to attitude-control thrusters and a main thruster at the rear. Its suction system is powerful enough to hold the car upside down in midair, letting it grip the road and corner as if ignoring the laws of physics. Musk said Tesla and SpaceX engineers worked closely together to build something better than the James Bond car, something never seen in any movie. He added that he was unsure whether a Roadster with such features would be street-legal everywhere.
For safety reasons, the demonstration was conducted autonomously with no driver on board, but the production Roadster will be sold as a human-driven car. Musk said that over the long term it will be the only manually driven vehicle Tesla makes. He said mass production would begin in 2028.
The Roadster, a car Musk has repeatedly said he is fond of, was Tesla's first commercial product in 2008 and the world's first electric sports car. The company unveiled a new version developed as a flying car in 2017 and took orders with a $50,000 reservation deposit, but the vehicle has drawn criticism for still not reaching the market nine years later.