Elon Musk Unveils New “Flying Car,” The Tesla Roadster
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The future of driving is here, and it takes off-roading to new heights…
At SpaceX’s Rocket Development and Test Center in McGregor, Texas, on Thursday, Oct. 15, the new Tesla Roadster was unveiled.
“You’re going to see some crazy stuff tonight,” Elon Musk told the crowd as he walked onstage, donning a star-emblazoned belt buckle in keeping with the lone star state that his company moved to in 2024.
Continuing, Musk boldly stated, “Like, we need an audience to prove that it’s not AI, or SI, so you can tell people you saw it with your eyes. Because, what you see with your eyes, you will not believe.”
Touting his own companies as the “world’s best” car and rocket companies, he said that the new Tesla Roadster was the result of those two companies working together.
From there, the Tesla Roadster was then revealed through a series of elaborate stunts.
See The New Tesla Roadster In Action
Before showing off the new Tesla Roadster, Elon Musk prefaced, “This is the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX engineers, working closely together, to make something that you haven’t seen in any movie … better than any James Bond car.”
He added, “When I suggested this to the team, I thought, ‘Am I crazy?'”
In the demonstration of the car, the Tesla Roadster went up a 90-degree ramp before defying gravity, hanging upside down for a prolonged period of time.
The car then backed up before going back up the ramp, which curves at the top, and the car then drove off the ramp, upside down, before landing in a cloud of mist.
See that moment, here:
Real life, baby https://t.co/3QEqn18wig
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
Quoting fellow tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, Musk said, “‘The future promised us flying cars, but instead we got 140 characters.’ Well, not anymore.”
The timing of this announcement comes 20 years after Musk first introduced the Tesla Roadster, which was a pioneering Electric Vehicle.
Featuring altitude control thrusters, as well as main thrusters at the rear of the vehicle, Musk declared:
“It can basically fly like a rocket.”
The car also utilizes up to 2-G’s of force to keep the car affixed to the road… even if it’s upside down.
Musk admitted that most drivers will never be in a situation that allows for them to be upside down, but said that the technology means the car has incredible traction on the road, making seemingly impossible turns.
“This is not necessarily a safety-optimized car, OK, but it takes the fun-meter up to 11 out of 10,” Musk said.
Then, they showed off the car again, doing an impressive stunt that found the Tesla Roadster jumping over five Tesla vehicles, à la Evel Knievel. However, unlike the famed stuntman, there was no ramp used, with the Tesla Roadster using only its thrusters to lift over the line of vehicles, spinning in the air before safely landing on the other side.
“Tony Hawk would be proud,” Franz von Holzhausen, chief designer for Tesla, said. “We call that the kickflip.”
It was noted that the Tesla Roadster could fly over the entire fleet of Tesla vehicles, but they limited the stunt to five vehicles to account for stage space.
See the “kickflip” moment, here:
Do a kickflip! https://t.co/DJ1Bq1yu8m
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
Uniquely, the car is set to be the last Tesla car offering manual driving capabilities. It also goes from 0 to 60 mph in .81 seconds.
The Tesla Roadster will enter production in 2028, so it’s still a few years away from being in the garages of consumers.
For more information on the Tesla Roadster, visit its website, here.
Watch Elon Musk’s full presentation of the Tesla Roadster, here:
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