Growing up, every vision of the future featured flying cars. Elon Musk seems determined to finally make it happen.
At a product reveal staged at a SpaceX rocket development facility in Texas, the billionaire CEO showcased a prototype of the long-delayed Tesla Roadster.
The event featured high-flying stunts, air-pumping cold thrusters, and a driverless demonstration that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie.
“Turns out the future does have flying cars,” Musk wrote shortly after on X.
Turns out the future does have flying cars pic.twitter.com/6fexPp6SXI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 16, 2026
A rocket-fueled spectacle
The highlight was brief, wild, and entirely experimental. Propelled by 10 ultra-high-pressure air nozzles fed by internal compressed tanks, the prototype used underbody suction to cling to a steep ramp, hang upside down, and spin off. It leaped over a line of parked Teslas, flipped mid-air, and used bursts of compressed gas to break its fall before landing safely in a cloud of white smoke.
The specs sound absurd. Musk claims the production model will reach 0 to 60 mph in under a second — and the credit for this goes to rocket-thruster technology.
“Success is not guaranteed,” Musk told the crowd, explaining that the test ran autonomously for safety. “I mean that. It’ll probably work, but if it doesn’t work, we’re at a safe distance.”
Tesla’s next-generation electric Roadster features an all-wheel-drive powertrain, seating for four, 10,000 Nm of wheel torque, a 620-mile range, and a top speed exceeding 250 mph. The standard model costs $50,000 to reserve.
Upgrading to the Thrust Variant requires a $245,000 follow-up payment and adds SpaceX cold-gas rear thrusters alongside an active multi-mode fan system for downforce, cutting acceleration down to under a second. An invite-only Rocket Variant replaces standard features with a single-seat configuration and perimeter thrusters for true flight, rendering it non-road-legal.
The long road to 2028
While the spectacle was undeniable, aviation experts remain skeptical that the vehicle can serve as both a practical road car and a true aircraft.
Aircraft design prioritizes minimal weight to generate lift and maintain stability. Hence, heavy components are detrimental to performance. Also, passenger road vehicles use safety features like steel bumpers and crumple zones to absorb impact forces during collisions. Heavy safety parts protect cars during crashes, but that extra weight makes it hard to fly.
“Inevitably, something that is a hybrid between the two is going to be a poor performing aircraft and a poor performing vehicle, and also quite expensive,” Roger Conner, vertical flight curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, told CNN.
Thursday’s demonstration did not show long-range flight capabilities. “We’re not talking about sustained flight,” he emphasized. “We are literally talking about hopping.”
Musk pitched the car as the direct result of a collaboration between “the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company.” The current tentative production target has been set for 2028. Still, Musk has a track record of setting optimistic release targets for Tesla products, only to miss them by years.
Whether drivers will ever legally hover over morning traffic jams remains an open question. Nevertheless, watching a sports car flip upside down and land on cold-gas jets was proof enough that flying cars are moving out of science fiction and onto the runway. Way to go, Musk.