Elon Musk has finally shown the world the second-generation Tesla Roadster, and it behaves less like a sports car and more like a stunt aircraft. Unveiled on Thursday 15 October 2026 at SpaceX's rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas, the redesigned two-seater spent its launch night driving upside down, jumping over a line of parked Teslas and twisting mid-air on cold-gas thrusters, according to Reuters, reporting via The Jerusalem Post. The livestream, which began at 7:55pm Central time, arrived two weeks late after the event was postponed from its original 1 October date over weather concerns, Signal Post News reports.
After nearly a decade of teases and missed deadlines, Musk's message was characteristically grand. "Flying cars are real," he told the crowd at McGregor, describing the machine as "the best of the last of the human-driven cars" and insisting: "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." Clips of the demonstration that Musk posted on X carried the caption "Turns out the future does have flying cars", while Tesla's own account shared the footage with the two-word verdict: "Real life, baby."
Not the Roadster anyone expected
Anyone remembering the svelte prototype Tesla revealed in 2017 will find almost nothing familiar in this car. The new Roadster is angular and slab-sided, an unmistakable relative of the Cybertruck, and a radical departure from the smooth concept shown nine years ago, according to Signal Post News.
The details betray its ambitions. The cabin uses steer-by-wire controls, the rear carries an active aerodynamic wing, and — most significantly — the car is fitted with SpaceX cold-gas thrusters. Round thruster ports are visible low on the rear fascia, a design choice that makes the rocket hardware impossible to mistake for trim. The thrusters use compressed air and refill themselves; as Tesla's X account put it, per Shacknews: "every usable void in the car is packed with Carbon Fiber Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs). More compressed gas on board = more flight time."
That SpaceX DNA goes well beyond branding. Musk described the vehicle as a joint project of both companies' engineering teams, a point that analyst Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management says is fuelling fresh speculation that Musk wants to merge Tesla and SpaceX, Reuters reports via The Jerusalem Post.
What the demonstration actually showed
The headline act was deliberately theatrical. A white two-seater drove up a curved ramp and continued upside down, clinging to it via a suction system. It then turned in the air and landed using its built-in thrusters, according to Signal Post News.
The second stunt was more audacious. The car used its thrusters to jump over a truck and a row of Tesla vehicles — a Cybercab, a Cybertruck, a Semi, a Model Y and a Model 3 — twisting and barrel-rolling in the air before touching down again, with Reuters, Shacknews and USA Today all carrying descriptions of the footage. It was the sequence Musk clipped and posted online to anchor the "flying cars are real" claim.
Musk, unusually for a car launch, was upfront about the risks. "By the way, success is not guaranteed... It'll probably work, but if it doesn't work, we're at a safe distance," he said before the demonstration. In a notably candid admission, he also acknowledged that safety had not been the top design priority, Signal Post News reports — a remark that may haunt the company if the Roadster ever reaches real streets.
The numbers Tesla is claiming
The performance figures read like science fiction. Tesla's vehicle engineering chief, Lars Moravy, said the Roadster will sprint from 0 to 60 mph in less than one second, reach 100 km/h in 0.81 seconds and exceed a top speed of 230 mph, Business Standard reports. If even close to accurate on production hardware, the sub-one-second 0–60 time would obliterate every production-car acceleration record in existence.
For now, these remain claims attached to a demonstration vehicle, not independently verified test results. Tesla has form in announcing extraordinary specifications years before production — and in delivering less than the headline figure when cars finally ship.
Nine years late, and still not on sale
The history of the second-generation Roadster is a cautionary tale all its own. Tesla first revealed a prototype in 2017, when Musk promised deliveries would begin in 2020 with a $200,000 base price, according to USA Today. The 2020 deadline came and went, followed by six more years of delays and revisions.
Production is now targeted for 2028 — nine years late — Signal Post News notes. No target price was announced at Thursday's event, leaving open the question of whether the original $200,000 figure bears any relation to reality. Musk insisted the vehicle shown at McGregor "will be the actual car that's on the roads", but given the car's lineage, buyers are entitled to scepticism.
The sceptics weigh in
The most pointed pushback came from an unlikely quarter: the Smithsonian. Roger Conner, the National Air and Space Museum's curator for vertical flight, questioned whether Thursday's spectacle amounts to sustained flight at all, describing it as closer to "hopping". A car that briefly leaves the ground, he argued, is not an aircraft — and bolting flight hardware onto a road car runs into brutal engineering trade-offs between weight, crash structures like bumpers and crumple zones, and the power needed for sustained lift, according to Ascendants.
The investor class was equally unimpressed. Munster called the reveal "an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers", Reuters reports. His assessment carries weight because of the timing: the spectacle arrives as Tesla pivots its focus toward self-driving technology and robotics, and just days before the company's third-quarter results, which analysts say will matter far more to shareholders than a showpiece coupe. USA Today adds that the legality of using thrusters on public roads remains unclear — a regulatory grey area that could limit the technology to private venues regardless of what Tesla intends.
There is also genuine competition in the flying-car space that Tesla's stunt sidesteps. Companies such as Alef Aeronautics are developing vehicles built around actual vertical takeoff and sustained flight, using different lift architectures entirely — a reminder that the industry's flying-car serious work looks nothing like a stunt ramp in Texas, Ascendants notes.
Why Tesla did this now
Seen in context, Thursday's event was as much about narrative as engineering. With Tesla's business pivoting toward autonomy and robots, and with quarterly earnings days away, a jaw-dropping demonstration that dominates the news cycle serves an obvious purpose. Whether the Roadster ever becomes a viable product — let alone one with thrusters you can legally fire on a public road — is a question for 2028 and beyond. For now, Tesla has the footage, the headlines and the claim: "Flying cars are real." The evidence, as ever with Musk, deserves its own landing.
FAQs
What exactly did Tesla show at the McGregor event?
On 15 October 2026 Tesla unveiled a completely redesigned second-generation Roadster — angular and Cybertruck-inspired — fitted with steer-by-wire controls, an active rear wing and SpaceX cold-gas thrusters visible as round ports on the rear fascia, according to Signal Post News. The demonstration featured the car driving upside down on a suction-equipped curved ramp, landing from the air on its thrusters, and jumping over a truck and five parked Tesla vehicles while barrel-rolling, Reuters reports.
Does the Roadster actually fly?
Not in any sustained sense, according to aviation experts. Roger Conner, the Smithsonian's curator for vertical flight, described the demonstration as closer to "hopping" than flight, arguing that a car briefly leaving the ground is not an aircraft — and that combining road-car crash structures with flight hardware involves deep engineering trade-offs, per Ascendants. Real vertical-takeoff vehicles from firms like Alef Aeronautics use entirely different lift architectures.
When can you buy one, and how much will it cost?
Tesla is targeting production in 2028, nine years after its original 2020 delivery promise, with no target price announced at the event, according to USA Today and Signal Post News. The 2017 prototype was quoted at a $200,000 base price, but there is no indication that figure still applies. Given the car's history of delays, treating the 2028 target as provisional would be wise.
Why are analysts sceptical of the reveal?
Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called it "an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers", Reuters reports. The spectacle landed days before Tesla's Q3 results — which analysts consider far more important — and USA Today notes that the legality of using thrusters on public roads is unclear, potentially confining the technology to private venues. Munster also said the joint Tesla-SpaceX engineering effort fuels speculation Musk wants to merge the two companies.
What do the performance claims add up to?
Tesla engineering chief Lars Moravy claims 0–60 mph in under one second, 0–100 km/h in 0.81 seconds and a top speed above 230 mph, per Business Standard. The thrusters run on compressed air stored in carbon-fibre overwrapped pressure vessels packed into the car's voids, according to Tesla's X account. These remain company claims about a demonstration vehicle — no independent testing has verified them, and Tesla's record on announced-versus-delivered specifications invites caution.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.
🤖 This article was rewritten by Feed and Figures' editorial AI from a report originally published by Reuters (via The Jerusalem Post), USA Today, NDTV, Business Standard, Signal Post News, Shacknews, Ascendants. Facts and quotes are preserved from the original; the rewrite focuses on clarity and structure. For the unedited original, see the source link below.
