Elon Musk's Craziest Promise Yet: A Supercar That Defies Gravity

For nine years Elon Musk has been making promises of a Roadster with capabilities no car ought to have, and on October 15 he put one on display. At the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, Tesla's next generation model climbed a wall, hung upside down, flew over the rest of Tesla's lineup and posted a 0 to 60 of 0.81 seconds. What is left for the company is to make of that 30 minute stunt something they can put in front of customers in 2028; the price list gives an indication of how it will go about it.

A Reveal Built Like a Rocket Test

In under half an hour the event was over, and it had the air of a stunt show more than a product unveiling. The Roadster made its way up a high C shaped ramp to come to a halt on the vertical part and remain there upside down. It did the climb again and from the top leapt off, flipping as it went before the thrusters put it back down on the ground.

The venue was the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, a short drive from Waco. In the driver's seat for the first stunt was an Optimus robot, there for show only, since the car had been programmed for the moves.

Musk put it in a sentence tailor made for social media. "So it can basically fly like a rocket," he said on stage. "And it could do rolls. It could do, like, crazy gymnastics. Whatever you want, really. Now, I should say that this is not necessarily a safety-optimized car. But it takes the fun meter to 11 out of 10."

The Hardware That Makes a Car Stick to a Wall

Take away the show and the Roadster is an electric supercar with two bits of unorthodox hardware bolted on. One is for suction. Tesla's website has it that a ground sealing system and multi-mode fan pulls air out from beneath the vehicle to generate downforce, in fact enough to hold the car inverted while at rest. The fan system comes from SpaceX, sits under the car and can put out as much as two Gs of suction.

Then there are the thrusters. Tesla touts them as advanced cold-gas units with all-electric actuators for exacting thrust and micro adjustments in a split second. Ten nozzles are fed by two ultra high pressure air tanks of 600 liters capacity holding some 250 kilograms of air; the car can top off its own supply without any chemical propellant. Put simply, the Roadster runs on compressed air rather than rocket fuel.

Tesla makes no bones about the crossover in their marketing. "We already put Roadster in a rocket. Now we put a rocket in Roadster," the page at tesla.com/roadster proclaims, a nod to the original Roadster which SpaceX sent to Mars on a Falcon Heavy in 2018.

Under a Second to 60, and a Mach Number for Later

Acceleration is the headline figure. Tesla has been touting for some time that the new Roadster will do 0 to 60 in less than a second; at the event the company put the number at 0.81 seconds. Musk thinks the production model ought to be better still, though he concedes there is only so much an occupant can put up with.

He also teased a bigger target. "You've got to crack halfway to the speed of sound, I think," Musk teased. "Mach 0.5. Maybe a little higher."

The lightness of the car is down to an unorthodox design. On its site Tesla says first principles engineering and the use of magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber are employed to reduce mass, along with fixed seats and manual controls. The pair of seats are molded right into the chassis, the rear wing retracts and the vehicle is fitted with a steer-by-wire yoke for the throttle and brakes. Lars Moravy, vice president of engineering at Tesla, put the flat nose and concealed headlights down to aerospace influences such as the SR-71.

Three Tiers, One of Which Is Not a Car You Can Drive to Work

With the show over, Tesla put up three versions on its website and the stunt becomes a matter of business. The Performance trim is for the road; it has room for two, couples active aerodynamics to the suction system and puts 0 to 60 in less than 1.6 seconds while aiming for a range in excess of 300 miles. Then there is the Thrust, a limited release that tacks on rear cold-gas thrusters and sees the 0 to 60 time go under 0.9 seconds. As for the Rocket, it is a one-seater with a full ring of thrusters to allow for sideways movement and midair rotation. It will do 230 mph and hit 60 in under 0.59 seconds. But Tesla's page makes clear it is by invitation only and appends a straightforward disclaimer: not approved for public road use.

The disclaimer is significant in light of Musk's stage remarks. "This will be an actual car that's on the roads," he said on stage. The company was later to concede the flying model would not be road legal. No automaker has yet figured out how to have both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on side.

What It Costs to Get in Line

No price was put forward at the event; the reservation page filled in the details afterward: $5,000 to reserve and $45,000 owing in 10 days for the base model. Then there is the Thrust package with its suction system and acceleration thrusters; that calls for another $245,000 within 10 days of the reservation, which is where the $250,000 figure comes from. As for the Rocket version, it is by invitation only and, one suspects, something we will see plenty of in the videos of influencers.

To put it in perspective, the 2017 prototype was pitched at $200,000 with 620 miles of range, 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds and deliveries slated for 2020. Those early customers put down $50,000, or $250,000 if they were in the Founders Series, deposits that amounted to interest free loans to help fund Tesla's scaling ambitions.

Why Musk Keeps Calling It a Small Potato

What is most peculiar about the launch is the effort put in by Tesla's chief executive to downplay it. Musk has termed the Roadster a "small potato situation" that will not "move the needle in a major way financially," and he has put it forth as an engineering venture of both Tesla and SpaceX, going so far as to question if it is "even a car anymore." Some analysts see the re-release as prelude to a merger between the two firms.

The hardware bears out that interpretation. With its use of SpaceX fans and thrusters and a paint job Tesla claims is modeled on rocket protection methods, the car is a public showing of how the two companies' engineers are already of one mind.

It is also a latecomer to a race Tesla once led. Rimac set records with the Nevera, Porsche put the Taycan through its paces and BYD can put together a track worthy supercar for less money, all the while the Roadster was nothing more than a rendering. But there is a compelling counterpoint: none of them have flown.

What Happens to Hardware When the Demo Is the Product?

The Roadster is not really for the few who will be asked to put down money on a Rocket trim. Its true audience is the hardware founders and investors of Silicon Valley who sat through a 30 minute video and were shown what a company can accomplish with nothing but a demo. Tesla put out reservations that very night without giving a price for the top tier, a road legal spec for the flying model or a delivery date before 2028. Should that approach succeed, one can anticipate more hardware debuts that make a sale on the moment instead of the datasheet, and more deposits put to use as working capital, the way the 2017 deposits were.

Engineers will find the compressed air more of an interesting development. There is no ready made consumer market for cold-gas thrusters with electric actuators, self recharging tanks and a suction floor, yet they are precisely the type of parts that come out of an aerospace venture and end up in drones, robots and the like.

What remains to be seen until 2028 is which version comes first. A Performance trim that is road legal and has an actual range would make of the Roadster a normal product, if an extreme one. But if the Rocket trim is left as an invite only show piece it will be remembered as a marketing exercise for the Tesla and SpaceX alliance, bankrolled by those who deposited in 2017.

The Unglamorous Side of the Same Machine

A flying Roadster is fine for a good evening in Texas. Yet the component that will determine if anyone is behind the wheel in 2028 is the one Tesla did not make much of: the battery, which must put out over 300 miles and carry 250 kilograms of compressed air at the same time. In Lithium Is Not the Only Answer, and the Battery Industry Knows It, Sparknify examined this unglamorous side of electric hardware and made the case that the industry has been too focused on energy density to rank chemistries when such things as cost per cycle, safety and how it performs in the cold are of greater import.

What a vehicle is for is the question that underlies both the battery debate and Tesla's demonstration. The Roadster provides spectacle; the hardware firms we cover at Sparknify put forward cost per mile, uptime and supply chains. The one to ship on time is generally the victor.

Tesla has shown the Roadster can fly. It has yet to show it can be delivered.

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