Tesla's New Roadster Flies, Does a Barrel Roll at Texas Reveal

Tesla's new Roadster flew on Thursday night. At a livestreamed event at the SpaceX test site near McGregor, outside Waco, Texas, the redesigned sports car drove up a curved ramp on fans and thrusters, stuck to a ceiling upside down, spun through a barrel roll in mid-air and settled back onto the pavement.

"Well, it worked," Elon Musk said. "Flying cars are real."

The event began at 7:55 p.m. local time, almost nine years after Tesla first showed the car. Musk hosted alongside design chief Franz von Holzhausen and engineering vice president Lars Moravy. The car also lifted itself over a Cybercab, a Cybertruck, a Tesla Semi, a Model Y and a Model 3 while in motion. Tesla showed a 0 to 60 miles per hour launch in one second, though the timing method was not made clear.

Three versions, one of them built to leave the ground

Tesla will sell the car in three trims. Performance is the road version: two seats, active aerodynamics and a multi-mode suction system that holds it to the road. Thrust is the race version, with rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters and a 0 to 60 time under one second. Rocket is the air version. It seats one and carries 10 cold-gas thrusters around the car. All three versions get 300 miles of range and a top speed above 230 miles per hour, Tesla said.

How it flies

Moravy said the 10 thrusters run on 600 liters of compressed air. The air sits in carbon fiber overwrapped pressure vessels, the tanks SpaceX uses on its rockets, packed into every usable space in the car. The tank can be recharged. Musk said the car shown is the car customers will be able to buy, and owners will be able to do the same maneuvers whenever they like.

What it costs, and when it arrives

Reservations are open. Tesla is taking a $50,000 deposit for Performance and $250,000 for Thrust. Rocket is invite only. Musk did not name a final price at the event. Production, he said, will begin in 2028, another delay for a car first promised for 2020.

Nine years of waiting

Tesla unveiled the car in November 2017 at the Tesla Semi reveal and took $50,000 deposits on the spot. In June 2018 Musk said a SpaceX option package would add about 10 rocket thrusters around the car to improve speed, braking and cornering, and that they might let a Tesla fly. The car then slipped again and again, delayed in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, while Tesla built the Model Y and the Cybertruck. A reveal planned for October 1, 2026 was postponed two weeks because of severe weather in Texas.

Spectacle, with skeptics

Musk called the car better than any James Bond car. The stark white show car has angular Cybertruck-era styling, and Tesla said the design took cues from the SR-71 and F-35 jets. A Lotus Esprit like the one in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, a car Musk owns, sat on display at the event. Musk calls the Roadster a halo car and has said he is not sure it moves the needle much on revenue. He has also said before that safety is not the main goal with this car. YouTuber Marques Brownlee posted on Thursday: "This is a prank, right?" Rival Alef Aeronautics released a video of its own flying car passing over the new Roadster to welcome Tesla to the race.