Elon Musk finally showed off the Tesla Roadster on Thursday, eight years after announcing it, and the thing launched itself 27 feet into the air with rocket thrusters and did a barrel roll over five other Teslas. It is also not safety-optimized, not approved for public roads, and not shipping until 2028. Congratulations to the 2017 reservation holders, who have now been waiting longer than some presidencies.
Five Teslas Were Harmed in the Making of This Stunt
Per NBC News, the demonstration took place at a SpaceX testing facility in Texas, in front of a live audience that Musk opened by promising what they were about to see "was not AI or SI." Reassuring, in the way a magician saying "no strings" is reassuring.
The Roadster crawled up a curved ramp shaped like half a roller coaster loop, then accelerated off it and sailed over five parked Tesla vehicles. It came down softly in a cloud of condensation, courtesy of cold-gas thrusters. "Well, it worked!" Musk said afterward, which is a sentence you generally want to hear before the stunt, not after.
Then it did the whole thing again. Same five cars, this time with a barrel roll, and according to Tesla the car hit 27 feet of air. Another soft landing. The audience got exactly what they came for, which was a very expensive sports car doing something that no sports car should be doing.
The Car Really Sucks, Literally and Per the CEO
The technical pitch is that a fan-based suction system pins the car to the road with extra downforce, while self-refilling cold-gas thrusters handle the airborne maneuvers. Musk, never one to leave a pun on the table, quipped, "This car really sucks."
He also admitted that "it's not necessarily a safety-optimized car." Read that one again. The man selling you the vehicle said, on stage, that safety was not the main design goal. Tesla's own marketing team could not have written a more honest disclaimer, and I suspect they wish he had not said it out loud.
Minutes after the aerial show, the car peeled away with a claimed 0.81-second 0-60 mph time. That is more than a second quicker than the now-discontinued Model S Plaid, which was already quick enough to make passengers reconsider their breakfast choices. Keep in mind these are Tesla's own numbers, delivered at a company stunt show.
Three Flavors of Roadster, Only One Can Fly
Tesla plans to sell three versions. The base Performance model is "road-ready," with the suction system and no thrusters. The Thrust version is "race-ready" and adds rear-mounted thrusters for acceleration.
The Rocket version is the one that does the acrobatics. It is "air-ready," invite-only, seats exactly one person, and carries the cold-gas thrusters around its perimeter. Tesla itself says the Rocket version is not approved for public roads. Musk acknowledged the Roadster might not be legal in every jurisdiction, which is the corporate way of saying you will be flying this thing at a private airstrip and praying.
So the version that makes the viral video is the version you cannot legally drive to the grocery store. The version you can drive to the grocery store is a very fast electric car with a big fan. One of these is a product. The other is a trailer.
Eight Years, Zero Cars, and a Range Haircut
Here is the part the stunt show did not dwell on. The second-generation Roadster was first unveiled in 2017, with Musk promising production in 2020. It is now October 2026. Production, he says, will not begin until 2028. The company has repeatedly pushed back the timeline while continuing to accept reservations.
And the specs have shrunk. Musk now says the car will do 300 miles on a single charge, which is less than half of what he originally promised when he announced it. When a car loses more than half its headline range between the announcement and the demo, you are not looking at a delay. You are looking at a renegotiation with physics.
He did reach for a bigger number elsewhere. Musk said he wants the Roadster to "crack halfway to the speed of sound," about 383 mph, more than 150 mph above the current announced top speed. Wanting is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence.
Your Deposit Is Safe, Probably
The company has not announced a price or a release date. It has, however, announced what it costs to get in line. Prospective buyers can reserve the base model with a $50,000 deposit, or put down $250,000 for the Thrust version.
Pause on that. A quarter of a million dollars, for a reservation, on a car with no price, no release date, a production window two years out, and a track record of missing its last deadline by six years and counting. The Rocket version is invite-only, so you cannot even spend your way into the stunt car.
This is a company that has taken deposits on this vehicle since 2017. Every year the car has gotten more theatrical and less deliverable. That is a pretty good description of the Musk business model in general: sell the dream loudly, ship the product eventually, and let the fans do the waiting.
The Dingo Take
$250,000. That is what Tesla wants from you right now for the Thrust version of a car with no price, no release date, and half the range it promised in 2017. Musk could not have been clearer about the fine print either, calling it "not necessarily a safety-optimized car" while a crowd cheered a vehicle hurling itself over five of his own products.
I will say this for the stunt. It was a hell of a show. A car that jumps 27 feet, rolls in midair, and lands softly in a fog bank is a genuinely wild piece of engineering theater, and I would pay to watch it again. The problem is that theater is the whole product. The version that flies cannot touch a public road, and the version that can touch a public road is a fast Tesla with a big fan on the bottom.
Eight years of delays, a range cut in half, and a 2028 start date, all wrapped in a rocket-powered distraction. If you are one of the people with a deposit down, enjoy the video. Your car is still in the future, right where Musk keeps it.
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