Tesla just revealed its redesigned second-generation Roadster with SpaceX thrusters, a vehicle he has called “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.”
Tesla CEO Elon 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 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 reportedly was going to include the car being driven upside down on a magnetized ramp before hovering, which Musk allegedly scrapped.
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.m
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