Tesla reveals SpaceX-powered Roadster that flies and falls with style

Tesla just revealed its redesigned second-generation Roadster with SpaceX thrusters, a vehicle CEO Elon Musk has called “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.”

Musk showed off the car at an event outside Waco, Texas, with a demonstration that saw the car use a mixture of high-powered fans and thrusters to drive up an inverted ramp, spin around, and ease itself to a landing on the pavement below. The car also used the thrusters to lift itself up over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, Model Y, and Model 3 while in motion.

“This will be the actual car that’s on the roads,” Musk said of the car, which Tesla showed going 0-60 miles per hour in one second. “It literally is just going to puff itself up, and uh, and be able to do this, these maneuvers whenever you’d like.”

Musk said Tesla will finally build the long-delayed vehicle in 2028, but didn’t name a price. Tesla will offer it in three trims. There’s “Performance,” which it says is “road ready” and seats two, has active aerodynamics, and a “multi-mode suction system for next-level performance on & off the track.” There’s “Thrust,” which is “race ready” and seats two, and has the rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters that enable sub-one-second 0–60 times. And then there’s “Rocket,” which is “air ready” and seats one, and has 10 cold-gas thrusters positioned around the car.

All three trims will have 300 miles of range and be capable of going faster than 230 miles per hour.

Tesla’s website showed Thursday the company is taking reservations for the car, charging $50,000 just to reserve the Performance, and $250,000 for Thrust. The Rocket trim is billed as “invite only.”

Engineering VP Lars Moravy said at the event that the Roadster uses 10 thrusters connected to 600 liters of compressed air to lift and spin the car in mid-air. That air tank can be re-charged, he said. “Every usable void in the car is packed with Carbon Fiber Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs),” Tesla wrote in a post on X, calling out the vessels that have been at the root of multiple SpaceX rocket explosions. The company said “every usable void” in the car is filled with these vessels.

Musk also said at the event that Tesla may try to jump the Snake River Canyon — a famous gap that Evel Knievel tried to jump in a steam-powered rocket.

Musk has positioned it as a true halo car for Tesla, saying at one point that he’s “not sure it moves the needle massively from a revenue standpoint.” But he has previously said the that “safety is not the main goal” with the new Roadster.

“If you buy a Ferrari, safety is not the number one goal. I say, if safety is your number one goal, do not buy the Roadster,” he said on a podcast earlier this year. Tesla would “aspire not to kill anyone in this car,” he said.

“This is the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX Engineers working closely together to make something you haven’t seen in any movie, better than any James Bond car,” Musk said at the event. “I’ve never seen anything like this. You know when I suggested this to the team, I thought, ‘Am I crazy?’”

Musk had previously claimed that the car “will be very different from what was shown previously” and promised the demo would be the “most exciting, whether it works or not, demo ever of any product.” An earlier version of the reveal event had reportedly was going to include the car being driven upside down on a magnetized ramp before hovering, which Musk had allegedly scrapped.

The design changes were notable. The car, shown in stark white, now has a more angular design reminiscent of a Lamborghini, or the famous Lotus Esprit used by the Bond character in The Spy Who Loved Me — a car Musk owns, which was on display at the event.

In another post, Tesla said the design was inspired by the SR-71 and F-35 fighter planes.

“Our design language has evolved since the last reveal: from S3XY to Cybertruck, Cybercab & Optimus,” the company wrote.

Tesla held the event almost nine years to the day after the company first revealed the second-gen Roadster, a modernized take on its first-ever car. Included as a surprise at the end of the Tesla Semi reveal in 2017, the company promised the revamped Roadster would be delivered in just a few years. Tesla allowed customers to place $50,000 deposits to reserve the car. Some even paid $250,000 to reserve one of 1,000 “Founders Series” versions.

Musk first talked about adding thrusters to the car in 2018. “SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car,” he wrote on Twitter that year. “These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly …”

But the Roadster project took a back seat. Later that year, Tesla suffered through what Musk eventually dubbed “production hell” with the Model 3 sedan. The company then moved onto other projects like the Model Y SUV, which became the best-selling vehicle in the world, and the Cybertruck, which was a commercial flop by Tesla’s own standards. Along the way, Musk delayed the new Roadster in 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024.

As Tesla got more distance from the launch of those new vehicles, Musk started talking about the second-gen Roadster again. Late last year, he said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that he wanted to reveal it by the end of 2025. One week later, at the shareholder meeting where he was awarded a $1 trillion pay package, he delayed it to April 1, 2026. Musk an April Fools’ Day event would give him “some deniability” if Tesla delayed the event again.

“Like, I could say I was just kidding,” he said at the time. Tesla wound up pushing the reveal again. It attempted to hold the event on October 1, but severe weather forced yet another delay.

These repeated delays caused a number of high-profile customers to speak out over the years, like YouTuber Marques Brownlee and OpenAI head Sam Altman.

“They really just got on stage and said this newly designed 4000+ pound car can do flips and go half the speed of sound (380+mph) and will ship in 2028,” Brownlee posted Thursday. “This is a prank, right?”