Ok, so it actually flies. That was unexpected.

It's an incredible engineering achievement to build in massive fans and rocket engines into a high performance car. It's truly wild.

It's being sold in two modes. One with cold gas (no combustion) seemingly just for extra forwards acceleration (no flying) and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".

Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.

Even just the cold gas variant seems like a nightmare for production, there's a high pressure COPV in that thing and that's gonna make crashes much more.. exciting, and Tesla doesn't have a great record anyways. But very few of these are ever getting sold anyways.

Everyone's focusing on the cold gas thrusters, which of course is very cool, but not actually shocking that it technically could be done (economically is another question).

But can we talk about the just casually driving straight vertical or sticking to the ceiling? I didn't think that would be technically possible for a 1000kg+ car with probably at least 2" of ground clearance.

There's presumably very limited stores of compressed gas, so you might get one hop or a couple 0-60 boosts per charge. But with electric fans, suction is a feature with much longer duration (minutes?), so you could feasibly do the batman driving on the tunnel ceiling past traffic trick.

I definitely have my issues with Tesla and Elon but this was one of the coolest demos I have ever seen in my life. The engineering needed to do this must have been unbelievable.

This video states that it takes 2–6 hours to charge the compressed air for the cold-gas thrusters. And then you can use it exactly once before you have to recharge it. The journalist calls it “beautifully pointless.”

https://youtu.be/JdkIOhFmbKI

The maths of the flying is a little puzzling to me.

Back of the fag pack, let’s say it is light for an electric car and weights 1000kg. I’ll also go on a limb and guess the air flow is actually subsonic - 200m/s would make it 0.6 Ma (still insanely fast!). Even then, that requires 50 kg of air every second. Or 40 m^3. Using everyone’s favorite metric, this empties an Olympic swimming pool in 1 minute. It also requires a MW of power. I mean… that’s a lot??? Though admittedly, only about as much as accelerating 0-60 in 1 sec (50% of that in fact). So the flying would draw as much power as accelerating at full throttle.

Power requirements would go down a lot with slower exhaust speed, but then you need to shift more fluid. 40 m^3 already seems like a lot to me.

I get it’s a neat little demo and they have to get SpaceX into the picture somehow, but still I don’t understand how it’s supposed to add up. Also, what do I know - just a humble physicist.

So this is a really neat technical demo, using spacecraft cold-gas thrusters and guidance hardware/software to do crazy stunt stuff in a car, but what's the relevance to an actual product that can be sold, even as a small-volume exotic? These are pressurized gas thrusters, so either the tanks, valves, and piping take up most of the interior of the car, or it has a low-single-digit number of seconds of thrust before recharge, probably both. Also the tanks for these things tend to use incredibly high pressures and are apt to explode spectacularly in any sort of accident.

This is sort of like demonstrating a car that softens the asphalt in front of it with lasers to get a better grip; difficult, technically impressive, and zero chance that it will ever be allowed on a public road.

Edit: According to this Motor Trend article, it uses a big carbon-fiber pressure vessel at 5500psi, so basically an enormous fragile bomb. And the one that did all the stunts had two of the pressure vessels which would have filled most of the interior.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-roadster-thrust-system...

Looks like a sensible turning down of the Cybertruck aesthetic into something that looks good.

That said, the production issues with the Cybertruck mean you’d be a fool to reserve one of these. Let others do it, find out how late it arrives, what glued panels fall off at speed and wait for the inevitable recalls. Tesla has torched their engineering reputation lately and this page is making a lot of promises about revolutionary things.

There are three configurations:

- Performance: road ready, seats two, active aero and a “multi-mode suction system.” 0-60 mph in under 1.6 seconds. Available by reservation.

- Thrust: race ready, seats two, adds rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters. 0-60 mph in under 0.9 seconds. Limited release.

- Rocket: seats one, adds thrusters around the perimeter of the car for upward and rotational movement. 0-60 mph in under 0.59 seconds and a top speed of over 230 mph. Invite only.

Per Electrek: https://electrek.co/2026/10/15/tesla-unveils-cyberfied-new-r...

Elon should read Anti-Grav Unlimited. It's a good book, actually a very good book. We want that tech. Time to invent the antigravity rods. AI is here, sorry, SuperIntelligence is here, AGI is on the doorstep, just ask the SOTA models to figure it out.

As an engineer myself, watching the Hagerty interview [0] was an ...interesting experience.

Every time Tesla's VP of vehicle engineering [0] explains the Engineering of the product by stating that they are "breaking the laws of physics", everything he says is losing a bit of credibility...

[0] https://youtu.be/22rvpUecLts?t=791

The livestream has the stunts: https://x.com/Tesla/status/2110788059008819215

Okay that's one of the coolest things I've seen in a while since the rockets landing.

Car looks half decent too.

This was 100% precursor to the absorption of Tesla into SpaceX and I’m here for it

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/tesla-spac...

I'm sure they'll release this one as soon as the release the Roadster introduced 9 years ago.

I”m not going to get into Musk himself. Nor will I get into the artistic absurdity that a moder supercar represents. But I will speak for the hackers amongst us:

The problem with the demo is that it was vapourware. Period, full stop. It is not the car they are selling to us, and they haven't even begun making them. I am personally not a fan of pure concept products that exist only to polish the company’s crown.

Steve Jobs said that "Real artists ship," because the act of shipping is the act of making the incredibly difficult and important decisions that manage the enormous number of constraints that go into the actual product.

If people like concept cars that don't have to actually work or meet a specific price point, fine. It is entertainment, nothing wrong with that. But I am not and will not be impressed until, like Apple, the thing they show on stage is so far along that you can be expected to buy one within weeks, not years.

I am not telling anyone how to judge this. But by my very old-school standards, vapourware sucks.

Did the car technically fly? To me it seemed more like a controlled graceful landing. Would we technically call that flying?

When I saw the headlines “Tesla shows flying car” I got excited, then watched the demo and was thoroughly disappointed. How can anyone write that headline?

“This isn’t flying, this is falling with style.” - Buzz

It's pretty cool that someone finally replicated the turbo boost jump function that K.I.T.T. had. Imagine having the boosters to avoid head on collision at 100km/h.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... - Worth a read if you haven't already

I know its marketing but still it's super inspiring to me. Try pulling it off in real hardware. It's incredible.

The audience for this must get really scared when the magician cuts the lady in half

This is not a flying car. It's a falling car. It's good at falling though.

Tesla Roadster vaporware edition MK2: now with actual vapor!

Does anyone have more info on the cupholders? I need to know it won’t spill my coffee.

Can this be scaled down to a Roomba? Then it would both be more useful at picking stuff up off the floor, and able to recover from falling down the stairs.

Using suction to create downforce is an idea that’s been built for race track usage in the past (and been successful in F1 in the ‘70s), but the near certainty of mortal injury from the system failing (and thus destabilizing the vehicle at high speed) made it unpopular and its incorporation has been very limited (McLaren and Ariel did versions, I think). I’m confused how this has (or will pass) regulatory approval for road use. Is the idea that the driver should only utilize this on a track?

It looks like a DeLorean to me. Someone needs to do an AI mashup taking Back to the Future and replacing the car with this.

Why do car manufacturers brag about hitting 60 mph in 1, 2 or whatever seconds? For a normal person, does this really matter - what is the big deal if a car hits 60 mph in 5 seconds instead of 1? There are more important things like safety, repairability, longevity etc right?

Okay, that's some of the most impressive feats I've ever seen. Congratulations to the engineers!

Apart from the supercar aspirational enthusiasts and the usual inspiration of innovation with concept cars give, I'm thinking of other audiences for this product. What's the actual future of this?

Ask yourself who would see the benefit of a vehicle that can jump over obstacles, other dangers or other cars?

Obstacles including barricades, flooded roads, tank traps, rivers, fences and burning cars. Dangers might include IEDs, mines, destroyed bridges, barbed wire, stinger strips, active munitions being fired at it, etc.

Even without such dangers, jumping over moving cars would be useful in pursuits where getting in front of a target gives an advantage.

And the extra mobility would be useful in humanitarian and disaster applications where getting to and from those in need in a timely fashion may save lives.

What's so disruptive on these kind of events is, that companies always used to do development for PR-stunts, or to show off their capabilities and vision for the future, but never at this scale of pure engineering investment.

Drawing a parallel, manufacturers presented rollable mobile devices already a decade ago, modular devices with replaceable components, etc. The archives of Nokia and Ericsson (and others) are full with these kinds of products. Car manufacturers did the same. They presented a vision, not a commitment to a product because there is much more to this than just "being able" to build it.

But it was never economically feasible or sensible to do this at SUCH a scale of engineering cost, and presented with the unrelenting confidence of "this will be yours in two years", despite all the fundamental roadblocks still to overcome.

It appears that this is the most disrupting aspect of their presentations: People are not used to being presented a "vision" of such a scale with so little regards for practical execution.

They like the journey they are taken on, and willingly fill all gaps and doubts with "they wouldn't present this if they didn't think of everything already"

So, if you crash and the air tank ruptures do you just... die?

I personally see this like a 1UP for rich idiots that are about to drive themselves into oblivion. Beats the solution in Demolition Man.

I wouldn't trust promo videos.

For Eg, we have self driving trucks. Nikola admits prototype was rolling downhill in promotional video: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype...

Tesla’s History of Faking Demonstration Videos: https://dawnproject.com/teslas-history-of-faking-demonstrati...

This is probably just to hype up the stock. The stock is down 5% (5 days), up 1% (1 month), down ~7% (6 months), down ~20% YTD, down ~16% (1 year). It has a PE of 336 and dwindling YOY sales. Tesla’s U.S. vehicle sales fell approximately 14% to 20% year-over-year through the first three quarters of 2026. Rest of the world, Tesla is not competitive and will probably go down rapidly soon.

I wonder if Musk is entering the brain rot phase, and Tesla will decline from now on. After all, this is something Tesla doesn't need, a second dud after the Cybertruck. I'm sure the decline will take some time though.

This is just Tesla marketing. Usually companies just dump money into marketing campaigns. Musk dumps it into engineering instead.

Remember when they sent one into space? Same thing, everyone in the world is talking about it without spending a single cent in ads.

Doesn’t mean we’re getting flying cars.

[flagged]

I have to admit that the only thing I give Elon the title of “Genius” for is his ways of putting on shows to launder more money or get larger loans… this economy is a circus.

It’s a remote controlled CO2 canister on wheels with a skin that looks like a car. It’s a stupid publicity “stunt”. Har har Elon.

Looks like more hype nonsense to keep excitement going while continuing to delay actually delivering a real product.

The fact that the one that can fly is invite-only makes me wonder if there would be ITAR issues with the guidance mechanisms that they have to put into it.

I'm not saying that there aren't lower hanging fruit reasons why they wouldn't make more of those, but you can see how the guidance necessary to make this move the way that it does could be dual use.

I am actually seeing what I envisioned growing up. Pretty exciting times!

Amazing tech demo. I would have liked to see more discussion of the cold-gas thrusters in the earlier Hacker News article. Some people seemed confused and made claims that the demo was a separate "rocket" version that used a combustion technology.

So has he hired anyone who does not exist to champion the cause of the innocent and helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law?

Assuming this never really ships (ahem), this is basically an upper-tier "YouTuber engineer" stunt video with a NASDAQ symbol attached. And the results there seem to suggest that Musk's marketing schtick is wearing a bit thin...

I can't wait for them to never actually produce this or, if I'm wrong and they do, I can't wait for someone to seriously injure themselves or someone else.

Some cars, if you have to ask what it costs, you can't afford it.

Other cars, if you have to ask where the government will allow you to drive it, you can't afford it.

I could have used that when leaving Costco last Saturday.

How did they get it to stick to the track just hanging there. It didn’t look real at all.

Production and other realities aside, I've seen some cool shit in my life and this demo is high up there! Did you guys catch 0.5 mach target top speed? That's 600kmh. It'd better do that flying because there probably aren't any rubber tyres that could endure that before exploding within seconds.

BYD has made the more practical cousin of this, and you can actually buy it. They have a car which jumps over potholes automatically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIKAn8yDkpA

One interesting idea for this technology is to prevent accidents. Imagine you are about to get hit head-on by a drunk driver. If only you had a set of thrusters to lift your car at the last second. So basically use this a crash collision avoidance "before" your airbag has to go off.

If this turns out to be real, I am happy purely on the basis of innovation.

This is not and will probably never be practical, but it's something that's never really been done before, and for that alone I kinda like it.

This car shouldn't be considered just a car. From now on, automotive technology will be used in completely different ways. For example, off-road jeeps may no longer need to cross water.

Original roadster is one of the best looking car designs for my taste. This... subdivision modifier over the Cybertruck.

Ok, it's cool. Now, why Musk betrayed Ukraine?

I genuinely didn't believe they'd ever do more than use cold gas thrusters for a lame boost effect, if at all. Happy to admit I was wrong, that was cool.

(still not buying a tesla thooughbeit)

Anyone know the physics of mach diamonds purely from compressed gas? I'm not a physicist, but I thought one of the key aspects of compressed gas is that it can't expand faster than the speed of sound in that gas -- the speed of sound is literally the limit to how fast it can expand?

I guess that puts the final nail in the coffin of the 2019 Roadster that was announced but never arrived. Shame, because I loved how it looked. Some of its aesthetic lives on in the Highland Model 3 at least.

Cool marketing gimmick. The suction is cool though, let’s see how it will do on the track. Basically your own Brabham BT46, very cool

As Elon intermingles the company how are investors compensated fairly for this. What does Telsa pay SpaceX for the technology and is there a conflict of interest?

What happened to the last one they announced? Is it just gone? are the preorders carried over?

aka a $245,000 loan to tesla with no interest for 10 years

'Thrust' version takes $245,000 of downpayment (not the flying version that is 'invite only'). That money is neither escrowed nor earns an interest.

With high interest rate and tight money supply, this could get them a few billion dollars of 'customer financing'.

This video, like the one catching the rocket with chopsticks, is so ridiculously cool even on the 20:th rewatch.

Genuinely impressed, incredible demo

Been a while since I was impressed with a tech presentation. I was waiting for a clear case of AI assisted movement ( though I personally expected to see it for the first time in a military chopper ).

**

Side note, as I was looking for the right stream, youtube gave me a link to a different deep fake 'Musk' stream where he extolled virtues of sending him money ( https://roadster-tesla.com/#participate ). Everything has changed man. I am sure the scammer actually got some people.

Meanwhile, Renault makes small and useful cars being sold more in France, for a fraction of Tesla's valuation.

It should have been a Delorean.... Still cool though

This is a showpiece at this point. but I can see these on the roads in ~10 years; but it felt more like a frog car than a flying car? in my mind flying quadcopters felt much safer in videos than this frog. It feels overly complicated based on what i have read; rocket boosters?? why? quadcopters and other flying taxis seem much more economical and using tech that's been reliable for at least last 20 years.

Now put six of them in a field and throw in a huge soccer ball.

The reality of EVs is that they all provide more or less identical driving experience - immense amounts of speed in straight lines and pure control around corners. But you can't really make something nimble or chuckable when it weighs 1.5 tons.

(Calling it a "roadster" is cute, but this has nothing in common with a Boxster or Miata. If anything, the ICE analogue would be muscle cars.)

Because there are no real unique driving characteristics, the only engineering you can compete with is raw speed or price. That and crazy gimmicks.

Probably among the least comfortable cars to be hit by as a pedestrian or cyclist.

Wondering how loud this would be if you were in the driver's seat or, worse, standing nearby.

of all the things you could do for the world.

Good for a date I suppose. It has the suspension bridge effect.

As Doug DeMuro would say, this is a “rich guy go fast” car.

Is it going to be fun and engaging to drive? Absolutely not. It doesn’t even have a steering wheel.

Finally, a vehicle that’s perfect for the CEO in your life who wants to upload his brain to a data center powered by the body heat of his employees hooked up to the pods from The Matrix.

Looks like the Ford GT90.

https://news.dupontregistry.com/blogs/ford-news/whatever-hap...

This will never be allowed to be anywhere near a road I hope.

is it me or does it just look ugly?, was expecting the original roadster looks...

Maybe the most useless feature for a car. I'd imagine you need some commercial performance license to actually own this feature.

It reminds me of Lockheed Martin's Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV-L).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC97wdQOmfI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Kill_Vehicle

> Note: Not approved for public road use.

Rocket trim is not street legal.

Loadstir, more like.

If used on public streets, these thrusters could easily maim/kill people- reckless to include them on a car.

stfu about Elon and issues you have. No need to mention that crap. Just share you opinion about the damn car.

My opinion is that the car is conceptually good but requires regulations. As much as I hate regulations, I don't want no flying cars on my head.

It would have been more impressive with a human in the car during some of the stunts.

This is an incredible feat of engineering. I have my doubts of the 2028 mass production timeline, but I am quite amazed.

one seat, designed by and for the most friendless man in the world.

I watched the ~16 minute presentation on YouTube and it was as if Elon and the two other guys presenting were doing a skit at a talent show. They seemed extremely unprepared. Maybe they were intentionally trying to come across as off the cuff, but it felt unnatural and cringey. Together they have the charisma of a paper clip. These guys are so full of themselves that it’s difficult to appreciate whatever accomplishment this may or may not be. And, of course, no way it will be street legal with air thrusters. What a complete joke.

1: That's an amazing demo, just fantastic. That makes me happy

2: I still want a topless Tesla that could be a good daily driver; an SL63 competitor basically. So, I'm sad.

No windshield wiper?

Back in the days we used to call these kind of demo cars as concept cars which rarely see the markete. But Kudos to Elon Musk who single handedly running entire Tesla's marketing compaign and keep its stocks and markete value higher than the next 10 car brands combined. Tesla Robots, Robotaxies and now Roadster, these are R&D and concept projects.

The inspiration from the F35 seems to be quite literal. Spent a lot of time and money making vertical takeoff happen, but forgot to give the vehicle any useful capability once it's actually in the air.

Can't wait for these things to endanger my family's life on some Colorado mountain highways. If the suction works at speed, people are gonna drive even more recklessly.

This is incredible engineering and deserves nothing but applause.

cool asf

The video goes against my intuition for how much performance you can get out of cold gas thrusters. I wonder if someone could do some back of the envelope maths on how much thrust and impulse you can get from a setup like this?

My primary scepticism is how much the prototype weighs, and whether it can still jump with 2 passengers + 1000kg of batteries inside.

A though for the people doing the "boring" engineering at Tesla (like, you know, enhancing the range of the vehicles, improving security, making FSD closer to reality, etc...), who used to get some light (remember "battery day" ?), and are now on the backbench while the sycophants gets the budget for vanity projects like this. At least, at Tesla, the sycophants are _smart_ and pull out cool demos. Not the case in every "new clothes" kingdom.

well Im suitably impressed

I never thought I'd live to see K.I.T.T

Not beating the "Elon is 12" allegations any time soon.

interesting they're going back to the fixed-seat bench design of the 40's-60's kind of car design - didn't know these were allowed anymore

also wonder how comfy that is? i kind of welcome it tho!

This seems less like a consumer product than a stock market demonstration of the supposed synergies of merging SpaceX and Tesla.

Why Musk would spend probably tens of millions of dollars on this prototype which clearly will never be drivable on roads. One explanation is he is a trillionaire and the 14 year old in him thinks it would simply be cool to do it.

I think there is a more rational explanation. Tesla sales have slowed, other companies are catching up, and if it weren't for import issues, Chinese cars would be eating Tesla's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet Tesla is trading at a 330 P/E and Musk has to do something to make it seem like Tesla is still light-years ahead of everyone else and just wait, that 330 P/E will be justified any quarter now. Just like shooting a roadster into deep space was just a PR stunt, this is a PR stunt to boost the brand with no actual market relevance.

It’s cool, I’d love this if I had the money to afford it. Maybe in a decade, it will be more practical and have more legitimate use cases, I’m not sure!

Also a massive feat of engineering, congrats to their team.

I dig the commitment to the low poly look! Really cool and fits in with the new design direction.

I must be old. I just keep thinking about what kind of whiplash I'd get with those flips

We are a nation of dullards, entertained away from our real problems by billionaires jingling keys in our faces.

Reminds me quite a bit about Compressed Gas Supercharging:

https://casupercharging.com/

I don't know the practicality of this car, or if the production version will have these thrusters, but the demo was epic. It tickled my childhood dream of working with mechanical stuff.

All Musk cares about is Mars. The CT is going to be a Mars vehicle, that's why it looks like that by and large.

And this tech is simply part of the Tesla/SpaceX merge, and right in line with flamethrowers, tunnels, and chainsaws. It's going to funnel loads of cash his way, which was the idea.

I was making my way on my rented scooter to drone bomb the Bezos BrainVat R&D center when the new model Roadster suddenly swooped over me in a mighty roar of liberated gas. Oh no, I thought! My mission is in jeopardy... but this is unparalleled quality content for the livestream viewers. I could see the Roadster's laser assembly lazily begin to track me, as if controlled by a joystick. A human pilot! Probably some one percenter out on a pleb hunt. The fool thought that I was unarmed. Heroically, I banked the scooter in a sharp turn while the machine gun on its back acquired the target, multiplying matrices furiously on its ancient low-fi GPU. As flames began to pour from the flying vehicle, I angled the scooter around a corner, timing it so that my black outfit would blur into the Apple ad projected on the side of the building. The Roadster's pilot was leaning out of the window screaming in rage and fear as his machine began a fiery descent toward the city shelter for abandoned kittens. I was torn between feeling bad for the kittens and giving in to the dopamine surge in my cortex as my viewer count climbed toward the stratosphere.

Finally. We've been waiting for flying cars for a while now!

I kind of concluded that they really don't want us messing around up in the air - for reasons. Now, combined with self-driving capabilities, maybe it's back on the table :)

That being said, I suspect that they way do this, as shown in the demo, is sustainable for seconds only. And if I understood it correctly, the system is not really for flight, but for correcting momentum while driving in turns and such.

Finally. We've been waiting for flying cars for a while now!

I kind of concluded that they really don't want us messing around up in the air - for reasons. Now, combined with self-driving capabilities, maybe it's back on the table :)

That being said, I suspect that they way do this, as shown in the demo, is sustainable for seconds only. And if I understood it correctly, the system is not really for flight, but for correcting momentum while driving in turns and such.

I've been recently playing a game called Approximately Up. You start from simple building blocks, thrusters and can use the in game logic system to build complex controls. One of the things I came about to learn was something to make a hover system for my ship was a simple PID controller. The side and bottom firing thrusters just remind me of my ship in the game. While the game is oversimplified and a bit arcadey, does anyone know what actually goes into this in the real life and is the huge feat the improvement on the weight of the whole car?

It's a cool demo and all but I can't help but feel like it's not that impressive considering these companies control such an absurd amount of capital and this is all they can do with it. A stunt for a launch showing off features that obviously won't be in any real product.

A lot of public funds go into these companies and it just feels like they are playing around with toys instead advancing humanity. I sometimes wonder if we are not allocating resources very efficiently.

This is pure marketing fluff. No way in hell this would ever make it into a street legal car.

This sounds more or less like the car my 5 year old son dreamed up a few months back: "Dad, dad! What if we put a bunch of rocket thrusters on the bottom of an electric car? We could even add a really powerful fan as well. And then the car could just hover past traffic jams, and it could even drive along walls or upside down if you put the fans in reverse!".

I'll be listening even more closely to his ideas from now on, even when they defy the "common sense filter" we adults tend to have.

What a beautiful car!

The real feat would be to actually ship the gas-equipped models. The on-stage demonstration was certainly quite impressive but handling real world terrain is a whole different story. Not to mention compensating for drivers who will skew lead-footed without any experience of handling a third dimension.

I am skeptical that this feature will prove to be much more than a publicity stunt, especially since the availability of these models will be so limited.

The suction and air recovery part might be forward thinking for how we design roads or tunnels. They might not all need to be flat. Especially when autonomous.

The lack of imagination in this thread is appalling. Especially given this crowd.

Wow, cool aesthetic. I feel like the this is what the cybertruck should have looked like but they didn't quite finish the design.

I no longer like Elon and Tesla but, damn, that's a great looking Lamborghini, and a cool stunt to launch it!

Finally a vehicle for Bangalore!

If helipads can only handle one chopper ever few minutes, and they are surrounded by clear and open space, then that tells you that theres no way flying cars with the frequency of typical roads or even quite streets will ever happen.

If you can afford something this ridiculous, then IMO you aren't being taxed enough.

> It challenges the limits of design, engineering and physics to deliver an expertly crafted extra-terrestrial vehicle.

closed tab. thanks.

It's great to watch these types of videos and tech ideas. It makes me really happy.

At least this one doesn't look horrible. I can't see myself buying it, but I don't feel like I want to gag either.

People who already have a Veyron should go for this.

It's very impressive. Not useful, but impressive.

With such a powerful suction system, I can see this replacing street-sweeping trucks in a few years.

SpaceX have great inertial measurement units and cold gas thrusters. We get it. Musk remains a fascist and can keep his cars.

Just curious: Was there a demo of a stable straight jump as well, or always barrel-rolls?

It must be incredibly difficult to keep the car stable while mid-air at low speeds, I suspect it wouldn't look that "elegant"...

I am amazed at how steady and in control the car was when flipping and jumping. If that kind of control on a vehicle is achieved today, it seems like flying car tech just took a giant lurch forward. Just in time for America's crumbling road infrastructure.

It seems it's not a convertible anymore? Which means it shouldn't be called a Roadster.

I hate Tesla for their politics, broken promises, and all the drama that we are all aware and tired of hearing about. That being said, that was the coolest damn thing I've ever seen a car do.

I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that it'll never make production like this, but what I see as being demonstrated is a suborbital lander/off-world ground transport concept that can work in low gravity environments etc. This will aid autonomous delivery vehicles etc to be dropped from low orbit and find their own landing sites, and then drive to location.

I wonder how many maimed kerbals are stranded around the space X facility while testing this.

Amazing demo.

Also amazing stupidity of people believing anything close to this will hit the streets. Lies and lies for a decade, and now after a flashy demo it is again "2028".

Very impressive prototype. Certainly an attempt to disrupt a specific segment of the car industry - "race cars", or "sports cars", or whatever you want to call it.

A few considerations, just my own thoughts.

1) I would bet that the actual car shown in the demo weights less than what will eventually be sold to the public. I am not an expert, but the way in which the car reacted to the air boosts suggests a relatively "lightweight" vehicle. Plus, I would imagine perhaps a smaller battery (again, for demo purposes).

2) It is a nice "exercise" as a game, or an expensive hobby for billionaires. I doubt, as Elon hinted, that using these thrusters will be allowed on public roads. Perhaps just on circuits?

3) Overall, Elon said that Tesla's strategy will no longer be about cars, but about robots and AI, and then proceeds to show a car that will cost billions to develop, and might not be the commercial success that justifies the investment.

4) Twitter (now X), Tesla, SpaceX... things are moving, tricks are being shown, and who knows, perhaps next year everything will be merged under ElonX, and he will finally be happy.

If I'm understanding this correctly, it uses the electric motor to compress air into large tanks? How much thrust could that generate (and for how long)? It'd be amazing to jump over East River or the Hudson.

Am I missing something? At what point did the car fly?

The thrusters were able to cushion a fall.

That seems useful in ruining the ending of Thelma and Louise, but isn’t really a flying car.

Is the copy grok's writing style? It feels inhuman but still more readable than Opus

So where is FSD that has been promised since 2017?

Cool stunt car though

> an expertly crafted extra-terrestrial vehicle.

hmmmm. spacex-tesla merger signalling?

Nice Testarossa!

I worked at Tesla when they announced the Roadster 2 and said they’d start production. That never happened. Funny to see everyone eat this up, let’s see when or if they deliver.

So this is a completely obvious scam, right? I don't see anyone else calling this out and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

The thing that they showed off isn't something that they could legally sell, it would basically be a bomb. Also, the battery pack that would go in the car would be so large that they couldn't do the stunts they showed in their drone vehicle.

Are we not calling an obvious stock pumping charade what it is out of some sense of politeness?

The homies have had flying cars for years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJDQURYkSvc

Looks like Tesla didn’t learn from the abject cybertruck failure

So, almost 10 years after the reservation for this version of the Roadster.

Jumping my way out of traffic.

Flying cars before GTA6.

Rocket-inspired design hints at desire to merge Tesla and SpaceX?

What's up with wheels not being round anymore? How is that supposed to work? I understand it for Formula 1, but for real world driving, it doesn't make any sense

What's with the ugly design these days... even that new electric Ferrari just look terrible coming from Ferrari not even the right color

Is that the Draco engine?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Draco

The corpses that this thing generates will be astonishing.

I have no words. Its like Elon asked Grok where can I take my business, and it suggested combine rockets and cars.

Flies, or jumps?

Dunno. Looks like it jumps. Fying seems to require some degree of control over direction but I'm just a gravity-impaired bidep.

Totally thought this was AI when I first saw this.

What a wonderful illustration of the technofeudalism that many seem eager to push our world into. That doesn't diminish the engineering feat it embodies, in fact it rhymes pretty well.

Other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112380

Given how Tesla's profitability nearly vanished due to Elon outing himself with the "roman salute", I don't see why he thinks his company will be around long enough to actually get this out the door.

I have no reason to believe this isn't another Deplorean.

It could have military applications; it's hard to imagine any civilian applications.

Misdirection

The art of deliberately guiding or diverting an audience's attention away from a secret action (such as sleight of hand) so the trick can happen unnoticed. Instead of forcing the audience to look away crudely, good misdirection makes the audience want to look at something else naturally.

> Tesla Sales Slump in Third Quarter

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/tesla-sales-fell-in-third...

Awesome technical demo (assuming these weren't prop cars). Painfully awkward presentation.

> An invite-only "Rocket" variant is a single-seat model with a "full flight system."

Tesla should be sued into oblivion over "full self driving", but after that, if you believe this nonsense and buy one that's on you.

Crash test rating: undefined

Paid subscriptions everyere, I bet.

EPA won't like the gas emission

The engineering team did an amazing job!

It can fly? Wow! What a time to be alive!

Potholes no longer an issue, just hop over them.

Is this a broken link for anyone else?

The rocket flip part looks like CGI, in my opinion. I get the same feeling as when I see CGI on some random B movie. Would be happy to be proven wrong if there was a crowd of people filming from their angle though.

Also "Beyond The Limits of Physics"... would any actual engineers at Tesla/SpaceX agree with that marketing statement?

So it can fly?

Just like we will have 1 million robotaxis on the streets by 2021?

EDIT: wow it really can fly, that is crazy

The thing that made the design of the original Tesla cars successful, before they went all in on this "future looks like the future" idiocy, is that they just looked good. Tasteful. All that crazy new tech was put in a package which hid it and it just became a sleek, good looking car on the road. Now Tesla design is obsessed with it cosplaying a Ridley Scott 80's wet dream and it looks stupid. The cars look like a show at universal studios theme park. When you do the "future looks like the future" it's always a sci-fi author's idea of "the future" which is cheesy and outdated as soon as its done. This is a boomer's idea of "future" aesthetics and it's not what the actual future looks like.

Are you kidding me? That was real? I laughed that off as AI BS and went about my day.

Tesla hitting their lambo era?

You can hate the man, but you must respect him. Flying cars have truly arrived.

Tesla death throes, looks cool but they’re done.

What a downgrade from the renders we've seen so far.

Did you see 0 to 60 in 0.81 second, now THAT is flying!

A car that jumps - am I missing something? The speed numbers are cool.

As a father of a growing family, I am still waiting for the RoBovan.

Who is the impressive to? 12 year old boys and Elon Musk?

Nobody needs that kind of acceleration on a car designed for use on public roads, and anyone who uses that capability in the vicinity of other people or vehicles deserves to be arrested. Its just criminally dangerous.

Like the Cybertruck, this is just the Musk "fuck you, get out of my way" worldview realised as metal and plastic.

That surpassed all expectations.

I'm so glad Elon exists. He must have spent over $100 million to build the flying variant with no hope of ever profiting off it. I can't imagine any other CEO ever doing that.

Oh look, not street legal.

Fun demo, never will see the road. There's a billion ways this can kill scores of people instantly.

I recall that about 8 (10?) years ago the “Roadster 2” was advertised. Am I correct that that was repeatedly delayed and never delivered?

My sense is that this is just more Elon Musk bullshit that will never materialize.

When I first saw this I was convinced it was AI slop. Nope! This is absolutely incredible. I've also never really resonated with Tesla aesthetic in the past but they really nailed it here imo. This car looks phenomenal - I hope this style trickles down to other models.

That the supposedly smart ppl here get their knickers in a twist over this theatre piece is telling.

Literally no proof of this working in real world conditions.

I call bull.

Unavailable to visit?

Flying car? That looks more like a jumping car to me - great engineering but a bit misleading imho.

If it allows me to fly over a traffic jam, I'll buy it

If this is real, it's going to kill people.

Absolutely incredible demo. Jesus Christ, I don't know what I was expecting. Didn't know this was planned and skipped forward to see what they were showing off and thought it was CGI for how outlandish it is. My god, man. This is amazing.

So they are going to send one of to space again?

Was there any demo showing the car stabilized mid-air?

It appears like they always did a barrel-roll because the car is simply not stable after take-off...

Are they serious about the rocket version??

Very COOL, I like this Roadster retro style

I predict the next James Bond movie will be a Tesla ad.

Will this car ever ship?

I cant wait to see what type of batshit crazy motorsport series they invent for these.

"Tony Hawk would be called, we call that the kickflip."

Uh what? Rodney Mullen invented the kickflip

Reminds me of this https://youtu.be/LC97wdQOmfI

I mean, this is the gimmicky of gimmicks for the ultra-rich.

It just means you can do jumps and stunts programmed into the vehicle at the push of a button with zero skill at being a stunt driver.

The Dukes of Hazzard had to do that without the thrusters.

Can't wait to see how people kill themselves and other people with those things by being stupid...

Hopefully that shit gets blocked by the DOT and kept off public roads--which is probably the goal to get a bunch of drooling simps outraged over "government overreach" keeping them away from their "flying cars".

I absolutely detest the leadership and what he is actively doing to this country... but holy fucking shit. I want to reserve one, but when you're broke as a joke... ooph.

At this point this is some sort of IQ test right?

Can you imagine being behind this thing and the air blowing rocks and shit all over your car?

Sorry about the eggs honey, I had to use the thrusters to get past this cyclist.

Reading some of this feels like I’m having a stroke.

>This provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.

Neat car though.

No way this is road legal in any country lmao

This reminds me of the time Elon Musk was only known because of the supercool stuff his companies did.

Jaw-dropping stunts aside, I am really disappointed with where all modern car design is going. What is that ugly low poly shit? The previous Roadster concept had a style, it had sex and taste. How did we get from there to here?

I'd buy one for the police chases. Hell yes. Not that I'm in the billionaire invite-only inner circle, and not that they'll ever ship it.

I just want to know how they faked it. Because I actually have zero trust that this is a realistic demonstration.

He literally made good on the long time promise of FLYING CARS and this is not the top post????

this site just toast

Will it even be maintainable? Never mind the rocket fuel...

Will the frame itself hold up?

I wonder if the jets will be able to assist breaking or control of the car in emergency situations.

I'm sure having a bunch of rocket engines, fuel, plumbing, etc, on my car will make it great in the twisties. This is such a stupid compromise.

How come this totally cool thing with 397 points is on the third fucking page being #65.

This is one of those products that offers a thrilling demo but I have no desire to own one. I much prefer the 2020 design that never made it to production.

Relevant.

* The Fastest Maze-Solving Competition On Earth - YouTube // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQbHMgK2rw

Is this a gas that needs to be refilled with the cold thrust one?

"grok, my flying tesla is dirty and there is a carwash 50 metres away. should i walk, drive or fly?"

"Jumping the shark" is now officially shamed by "jumping the Tesla"!

An innovative way to make some whoop-de-dooping billionaires with extra cash to spare land upside down on their rooves.

Really disappointing to see such low quality discussion here. Feasibility aside, we would not be seeing such reactions even 5 years ago. Polarization ruins everything.

Now with more explosions!

It is not a roadster. A roadster is defined as an open-air, two-seat convertible.

This one is a hard-top super-coupe and I recommend calling it the "Cyberwedge"

I need a cheap car. Sub 25k that I can use to drop my kids and get groceries and is electric so I can get some respite from these war inflated gas prices. Nobody is offering this. I dont need all the fancy gadgets and the flying and the jumping.

Looks like it truly is a K shaped economy. Flying cars for 1% and loans for the rest

Musk really is the master of fraud. Twitter gets bought by Space X to conceal the massive loss in valuation, Tesla gets pumped with endless "we'll have self-driving cars next year", for 10+ years... now that the Tesla bubble is finally popping he needs to dump it on the Space X/Twitter shareholders, so we get this demo of a thing that will never hit the road. Bag holders beware, Musk's masterpiece of market manipulation is about to execute with the merger of all his lies.

FSD doesn't even work properly TEN YEARS after it was announced

still tries to murder passengers jumping across traffic at shadows

good luck with anything Musk, you are the beta tester, if you die they'll debug it, eventually

I don't understand why they don't recruit an Italian designer...

Nazi-funding explosive-gas car is still a Nazi-funding car.

Yay the (almost) 10th anniversary of the 2nd generation Roadster reservations, and now it's got fucking rockets apparently?

How delusional are people? The emperor is not wearing clothes y'all.

Technology: spectacular, design: ugly as fuck

Hard pass

Amazing to see Elon making his childhood dreams reality. It's something to behold. I hope we don't lose that spirit. The amount of negativity is very worrying. One of the coolest tech demos in 2026 and it's on the 3rd page of HN morning after because of the downvotes.

As per Telegraph Musk has offered Trump the idea to slow down the Starlink, which resulted in deaths of many civilians.

Whatever you think about these advancements (like you could marvel at Nazi inventions), make no mistake. Musk and his Tesla should get fucked.

If Doc Brown's time machine was real and posted here, HN would be complaining that it's noisy, unimpressive, not street legal, uninsurable, and attacking Brown's personal character because he's a dangerous nutcase.

Having been raised watching the Dukes of Hazzard, I'm not impressed.

This demo took place roughly 30 hours after Starlink betrayed the Ukraine by dropping support for Ukrainian high speed intercepts and drones [1].

I don't see how we can discuss this demo without acknowledging that fact as well.

[1]: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-burn...

I've never been so convinced by dead internet theory than I am today with this huge wave of bots advertising for Tesla today.

Wouldn't drive a Tesla if it was given to me.

European or Japanese cars all day.

Can we get the original Dropbox hater guy to comment here too?

What has HN become - just endless anti-tech hate, downstream from idiotic TikTok politics.

Is it the moderation system that amplifies this nonsense here?

If those cold-air thrusters are getting commoditized, the real discussion here should be around what could be built around them. How to HACK them.

Reddit exists for this other nonsense pile on.

At least this is a break from all the bullshit AI agent garbage posted on this site.

Almost all the comments here are just the most generically negative I have ever seen on HN, with just general grumpiness everywhere.

This car is an incredible engineering achievement and a completely unexpected reveal.

Ai slop on a billion dollar company should tell you everything you know about how we are doomed by this ai experiment

it's be more impressive if it wasn't so pointless

Don't be fooled! This is AI generated slop.

The car clearly does not have enough momentum to go on the ramp all the way upside-down, yet it miraculously does not fall.

IMO reinforcement learning on par with teaching quadcopters to do weird things.

But the real question: does the roadster come with SpaceX thrusters? If so, they have my attention. Otherwise, boring, even more boring than the boring company. False advertising too. People need to demand that SpaceX thrusters are now an option if only to reboot the Dukes of Hazzard except with a smart car.

Edit: Hi there Elon fanboys! Hope that all meat diet is working out for you. Have you considered taking up smoking knowing full well that AI will cure cancer?

Wow, this might be the most phenomenal tech demo I've ever watched.

This is just amazing, congrats to everyone who worked on this.

From an engineering pov, it must be the highlight of someone's life and a massive amount of fun to be able to work on a product like this.

Was this real? I thought some wires were visible?

Pretty big nothingburger. Production starts 2028 and honestly, the taunted feature... it's not a flying car, it's a jumping car. Do people actually want this for themselves? I'd wager the valuation would go down after this presentation.

> Our multi-mode fan and ground sealing system acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the vehicle. This provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.

Bullshit, no it can't.

> Advanced cold-gas thrusters use all-electric actuators to offer precise thrust, completing micro adjustments within a fraction of a second. This helps stabilize the vehicle in flight.

In flight? What? Did I miss the joke, or what? It's a fucking car... The image even shows it hovering off the ground. How is this not blatant false advertising?

ETA: okay, skimmed some of the livestream. These is absolutely no way that any of these features will ever be part of a production model. People get serious whiplash injuries just from being rear-ended at low speed. What do they think is going to happen to the occupant when they tell their car to jump over a semi and do a fucking barrel roll? Seriously, what are we doing here?

A car that can make you, your friends, and your family deaf. Amazing.

So Elon's entities are really using SI instead of AI? Interesting. Or was he the one who actually suggested the name change to POTUS?

Unbelievable useless for the actual use of the car.

Kind of disturbing how hard he's leaning into the futurism aesthetic here, given its history.

I guess robotaxi is failing? This is my only explanation of that jumping gimmick.

I can't wait for some rich asshole going 120 mph to backflip their Tesla into my Outback on the interstate.

After Elon almost died in 2000 when he lost control of his McClaren I wonder if the real reason for these thrusters isn't actually to recover when controlling this beast proves too much for the driver and it starts to spin out or accidentally launches into the air.

The demo presentation was horrible.

The somber music, darkness, 3 awkward people presenting it with 0 presentational skills. Just a random comparison - if Steve Jobs were to present this, he would've killed it. I was watching the demo, impressed by the car so much, but I couldn't help but feel irritated at how badly is was presented. The choice or music, lights, everything.

This is literally the richest man in the world going "We were promised flying cars!"

And because he's the richest man in the world, he just does it for fun. Nerd Cool for sure! But given the state of the world, absolutely horrible..

Yeah no thanks. I think I will stick to BYD and other reputable chineese brands for my EV needs. Safety is a thing for cars. Teslas were not the safest cars before and now they are adding gas thrusters, oh boy, what could possibly go wrong. I would not feel safe driving behind or infront of this car.