Overview
- Tesla staged a live demonstration on Thursday in Texas in which a Roadster prototype drove up a looped ramp, held inverted by an underbody suction system, separated, performed an aerial roll and landed on its wheels while also jumping over parked Teslas.
- Tesla said the car uses cold‑gas thrusters developed with SpaceX engineers, roughly ten nozzles fed by high‑pressure carbon‑fiber‑overwrapped pressure vessels, plus a multimode fan‑driven suction system to increase downforce and enable brief airborne maneuvers.
- The company opened reservations and listed three trims — Performance, Thrust and the invite‑only Rocket that includes the full thruster suite — with staged deposits reported (a refundable $5,000 then higher additional payments for higher tiers) and a production target of 2028.
- Safety and legal limits were highlighted immediately: Tesla acknowledged the Roadster is "not necessarily a safety‑optimized" car, regulators have not approved flight functions for public roads, and COPV use raises specific safety scrutiny given past rocket incidents.
- Next steps to watch are formal regulatory and homologation decisions, Tesla’s release of final specs and pricing, how many Rocket units will be produced, and whether the company can translate the stunt into a commercially deliverable 2028 product while restoring buyer trust.