Flying Tesla Roadster FAQ

Yes, the car and the demo are real. On October 15, 2026 Tesla showed the new Roadster at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, where it drove upside down on a curved ramp and used compressed-air thrusters to hop, flip and land. Snopes rated the videos authentic. What is not proven is sustained flight: the car was airborne for seconds, and aviation experts describe it as hopping rather than flying.

Only briefly. The demo car launched off a ramp, rotated in mid-air, flipped over a row of Tesla vehicles and corkscrewed up from a standstill, each move lasting seconds. InsideEVs reports one charge of the thrusters lasts roughly five to six seconds. Before the event, the Smithsonian's curator of vertical flight told CNN, “We are literally talking about hopping.” It is not an aircraft in the eVTOL sense.

The footage is real. The demo was livestreamed on Tesla's X account, attendees filmed it from the crowd, and Snopes found nothing suggesting the video was AI-generated or edited. Some commentators argue parts were staged or pre-planned, and Electrek noted the thrusters fired before the car started moving on the 0–60 run, but the stunts themselves happened.

Tesla has not announced a price. Reservations reopened at $50,000 for the Performance version and $250,000 for the thruster-equipped Thrust version; the one-seat Rocket version is invite-only. In 2017 Tesla quoted a $200,000 base price and $250,000 for a Founders Series, but those figures belong to the old design.

The cheapest way to get thrusters is the Thrust version, which takes a $250,000 reservation. The Rocket version, which has ten cold-gas thrusters and the most flight capability, is invite-only and has no published price or deposit.

In the live run the car hit 60 mph in 0.81 seconds on Tesla's own timer, with thrusters firing; Tesla's own clip of it quotes 0.67 seconds with rollout subtracted. Tesla's claims by version are under 1.6 seconds for Performance, under 0.9 seconds for Thrust and under 0.59 seconds for Rocket. None of these has been independently tested.

Tesla quotes over 230 mph for the Rocket version. Electrek reports 230 mph for Thrust and 210 mph for Performance. The 2017 Roadster promised more than 250 mph, though Musk said on stage he wants to “crack halfway to the speed of sound,” about 383 mph.

Elon Musk said at the reveal, “We enter production in 2028.” The Roadster was first promised for 2020, so this would be about eight years late. Tesla has not given a delivery date.

Two systems. A fan-and-skirt suction system pulls the car onto the road with up to about 2 g of downforce, enough to hold it upside down. Cold-gas thrusters developed with SpaceX blast high-pressure gas (Tesla calls it compressed air; MotorTrend reports nitrogen) from nozzles at the rear, underside and nose to push, lift and rotate the car. There is no combustion and no jet engine.

Tesla's engineering chief Lars Moravy said the system uses ten thrusters fed by 600 liters of compressed air. Reports describe four at the rear, four pointing down near the wheels for lift and two at the nose firing sideways for yaw control. The Thrust version has rear thrusters only; the full set is on Rocket.

The Performance version is designed as a road car. Tesla's own page says the flight-capable Rocket version is “not approved for public road use.” The FAA told CBS News the vehicle doesn't meet its definition of an aircraft, so it is treated as a car, not a plane.

Not as it stands. The FAA told CBS News the vehicle doesn't meet the agency's definition of an aircraft, although it did put temporary flight restrictions over the McGregor test site for the demo. Some experts expect that to be revisited if flight becomes a real feature: an aviation lecturer at San José State University told WIRED the FAA has jurisdiction over any machine that leaves the surface of the earth.

Nobody was inside. The demo cars ran autonomously, which Musk told the crowd was “to make sure we don't kill anyone” if a maneuver went wrong.

On Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 7:55 p.m. Central time, at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco. Tesla livestreamed it on X and YouTube. It was originally scheduled for October 1; on September 28 Tesla moved it to October 15 because of severe weather forecasts.

Tesla quotes more than 300 miles. InsideEVs reports around 310–320 miles on a full charge. The 620-mile figure from 2017 no longer applies.

Performance and Thrust are two-seaters. Rocket is a single-seater because an extra compressed-air tank takes the passenger's place. The 2017 concept was a 2+2.

No. The car in space is Elon Musk's own first-generation Roadster, launched with the “Starman” mannequin on the first Falcon Heavy flight on February 6, 2018. It is still orbiting the Sun. The flying Roadster is the next-generation model.

The cold-gas thrusters were developed with SpaceX, the reveal was held at a SpaceX test site, and Musk first pitched the idea in 2018 as a “SpaceX option package.” CNBC noted the collaboration fuelled speculation about a closer Tesla–SpaceX tie-up.

Tesla's reservation page describes the initial $5,000 card payment as fully refundable, with the rest of the deposit due by wire within 10 days. Tesla's terms say a reservation is not a purchase or order. When 2017 reservation holder Marques Brownlee cancelled, Tesla initially kept $5,000 of the deposit before later refunding it.

At the event Musk quipped “Well, it worked,” and confirmed “We enter production in 2028.” A year earlier, on Joe Rogan's podcast, he had promised the demo would be “unforgettable” and said you would have to wait for it to find out whether the car could really fly.