The Tesla Roadster climbs a roller coaster-style track before landing. [Tesla/Reuters-Yonhap]
The Tesla Roadster climbs a roller coaster-style track before landing. [Tesla/Reuters-Yonhap]

Tesla has unveiled the new Roadster, a flying sports car the company has been teasing since last year.

Tesla demonstrated the two-seat, gas-thruster-equipped Roadster on Thursday (local time) at SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas, with CEO Elon Musk and Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen among those in attendance.

Before the demonstration, Musk quipped that "success is not guaranteed, but fun is 100% guaranteed" — though the event went off without a hitch.

The Roadster climbed roughly halfway up a circular, roller coaster-style track that arced into the sky, then used its thrusters to stabilize and land safely on the ground while inverted.

In a follow-up stunt, the car hurtled toward a row of five vehicles — including a large truck — before firing its gas thrusters to leap over all of them and touch down on the other side.

"We call that a 'kickflip,'" Musk said. "Flying cars are a reality."

He recalled a remark by his friend Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, who once said, "We were promised flying cars and all we got was 140 characters" — a jab at X, the social media platform. "Not anymore," Musk said.

Musk explained that the Roadster is equipped with attitude-control thrusters and a rear main thruster, allowing it to fly like a rocket.

He added that Tesla and SpaceX engineers worked closely together "to build something better than a James Bond car — something you've never seen in any movie."

He also said the car features a downforce system powerful enough to pin it to the ceiling, enabling it to corner as if defying the laws of physics.

"I mean, this car really sucks," Musk joked, playing on the double meaning of the word.

However, he added that he was not sure whether a Roadster with such capabilities would be street-legal on all roads.

The Roadster hit 60 miles per hour from a standstill in 0.81 seconds, meeting the sub-one-second target Musk had previously set.

Its top speed exceeds 230 miles per hour (about 370 kilometers per hour), and Musk said it could eventually surpass Mach 0.5 — half the speed of sound.

Tesla also showed the car deploying a rear spoiler, as on a race car, to optimize its shape for high-speed driving.

Thursday's demonstration was conducted autonomously without a driver aboard as a safety precaution, but the production Roadster will be a human-driven vehicle. "Long-term, this will be the only manually driven car Tesla makes," Musk said.

Musk said the Roadster is set to enter mass production in 2028.

Many had expected the demonstration to take place without an audience, but Tesla-invited guests were present.

Musk said he needed an audience "to prove this isn't AI or superintelligence."

The demonstration had been promised by Musk last year as something he would do "within the year," but was delayed multiple times before finally taking place Thursday.

The original Roadster was the first car Tesla ever sold, launched in 2008 as the world's first electric sports car — a model Musk has repeatedly expressed affection for.

In 2018, when SpaceX launched a rocket, Musk sent his own Roadster into space aboard it. The car is still orbiting the sun.

Still, Musk has not escaped criticism over the indefinitely delayed commercial release of the new Roadster, which was developed as a flying car.

Tesla first unveiled the new Roadster in 2017 and began taking orders with a $50,000 deposit, but nine years on, the car has yet to go on sale.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a longtime rival of Musk, publicly mocked the delay last November during an online spat, posting his 2018 Roadster reservation email and writing, "7.5 years is too long to wait."


husn7@heraldcorp.com