Tesla has unveiled a redesigned Tesla Roadster equipped with rocket-style thrusters — a vehicle that can drive upside down, turn in mid-air and leap over trucks — and said the long-delayed sports car will enter production in 2028. The reveal, staged Thursday at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, marks the most dramatic chapter yet for one of Tesla’s longest-delayed products.
The white two-seater, developed in collaboration with CEO Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, was demonstrated driving upside down along a ramp using a suction system, turning in the air and landing back on its wheels using built-in thrusters. Later in the event, the Tesla Roadster used its thrusters to jump over a truck and other vehicles, twisting in the air during the maneuver. The use and legality of such features on public roads was not immediately clear.
“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,” Musk said at the event. Before the demonstration, he cautioned attendees that the outcome was uncertain: “By the way, success is not guaranteed. I mean that. It’ll probably work, but if it doesn’t work, we’re at a safe distance.”
The Tesla Roadster Stunts: Specs and Showmanship
Tesla vehicle engineering chief Lars Moravy said the Tesla Roadster can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than one second and reach a top speed of more than 230 mph. The car uses cold-gas rocket thrusters — technology adapted from SpaceX — to achieve its airborne maneuvers, a radical departure from anything offered by conventional automakers.
The unveiling ends nearly a decade of waiting. Tesla first revealed a prototype of the second-generation Tesla Roadster in 2017 and said at the time that deliveries would begin in 2020. The timeline slipped repeatedly as the company prioritized higher-volume models and, more recently, its shift toward self-driving technology and robotics.
Tesla executives did not announce a target price during the event. When the vehicle was first introduced nearly a decade ago, the company quoted a base price of $200,000. The reveal comes days before Tesla’s third-quarter results, which analysts say matter far more to investors than any single vehicle.
Tesla Roadster’s Business Significance
Reactions to the spectacle split along familiar lines. “It was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Tesla investor Deepwater Asset Management, on social media platform X. He added that “the Roadster event is the latest example of why Elon can’t wait to bring [Tesla] and [SpaceX] together” — a reference to Musk’s open exploration of merging the two companies he controls.
Musk himself has played down the car’s importance to Tesla’s finances, describing it in 2023 as a “small potato situation” that would not “move the needle in a major way financially.” But analysts say the Tesla Roadster still carries symbolic weight. “Tesla does not currently have a halo car, or high-performance luxury vehicle designed to showcase an automaker’s best engineering and technology. The Roadster will be Tesla’s new halo car,” Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said in a note last month.
Some watchers saw the collaboration as Musk drumming up interest in a potential Tesla–SpaceX merger, an idea he has explored by discussing the overlap between the two companies. The Roadster reveal gives Tesla a showpiece car after years of missed deadlines, even as the company’s focus shifts decisively toward autonomy and robotics.
The reveal comes at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company has spent recent years redirecting capital and engineering talent toward self-driving technology and its Optimus humanoid robot, with investors watching third-quarter results for signals on robotaxi progress. Against that backdrop, the Tesla Roadster revival functions as a reminder of the company’s performance-car roots — and of Musk’s appetite for spectacle. Whether showroom-bound or destined mainly for promotional duty, the flying Tesla Roadster is the boldest halo-car gambit the auto industry has seen in years.
Whether the Tesla Roadster ever flies down a public road — or merely into collectors’ garages — the message of Thursday’s event was clear: Tesla still wants to be seen as the company that does the impossible, one thruster at a time.