7:15 am, October 16, 2026
Tesla has unveiled its new Roadster 2 and – thanks to SpaceX thrusters – it flew at the launch event last night.
The car, which has been nearly 10 years in the making, can accelerate from 0-60mph in ‘under a second’ and will cost around $200,000.
At the Texas launch event, live streamed on Thursday night, Elon Musk showcased the vehicle which has been developed in conjunction with his recently listed SpaceX firm.
During the launch the car drove up a half loop-the-loop ramp, at one point upside down, and then flipped the right way up, landing with the help of compressed air thrusters fitted to the bottom of the car.
A fan system fitted under the car, designed to improve grip, sucks the vehicle to the ground and allows it to corner at forces greater than 2g.
‘You can corner like it looks like you’re breaking physics because the car sticks to the ground so hard. So, acceleration, cornering, it’s going to crush every track record that has ever existed,’ Musk said.
Musk has hinted for years that the next Roadster would feature the thruster technology. He said the car will be able to cover 1,000km – some 620 miles – on a single charge.
The thrusters will be ‘optional’ and not fitted to cars in all countries. However, the stunt has still drawn huge numbers of comments online as many guess the new car will be able to ‘fly’.
‘Well it worked,’ wrote Musk online. ‘Flying cars are real.
‘This will be an actual car that’s on the roads. I’m not sure it’s necessarily legal in all jurisdictions, but there will be such a car that someone can own.
‘So, it’s going to be pretty wild that you can have a rocket car.’
Tesla launched with its Roadster back in 2008 and was sold until 2012. It was based on a Lotus Elise and groundbreaking at the time.
Musk wants the new model to be the ‘fastest sports car ever made’ and said ‘the point of doing this is to give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars’.
Speaking at the launch he said the stunt was not going to be without risk, but there was not a human driver aboard for the stunt.
He added: ‘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, better than… well, I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this.’
Manufacturing is due to start for the Roadster in 2028. It will be available in left-hand drive only, according to the UK Tesla website.