Thursday 15 October 2026
The Roadster flies: Tesla's demonstration at McGregor
On October 15, 2026, at SpaceX's rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, a Tesla Roadster climbed a near vertical ramp, hung upside down at 69 feet, launched into the air on cold gas thrusters, landed, and drove away.
Tesla demonstrated its new Roadster in public on Thursday night, October 15, 2026, at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas, and the car flew. The event began at 7:55 p.m. Central and was streamed live on X.
The show opened with a film of the car in X ray views: its structure, its wheels and fan hardware, and the cold gas thruster array built into the body. The white production car appeared on stage with its doors raised. Then the demonstration car took its place at the foot of an enormous curved ramp that rises near vertical and curls over at the top.
On the first run the car climbed the ramp while live telemetry ran at the edges of the screen. The pitch gauge reached 170 degrees and the altitude gauge reached 69 feet as the car hung inverted near the top, pressed against the ramp, before descending and driving away across the dark test ground.
On the second run the car climbed again and left the top of the ramp altogether. Its cold gas thrusters fired in open air, white plumes driving down and out as the car crossed the gap, and it came down in a great cloud of vapor, landed on its wheels, and drove off under its own power. The demonstration car was operated remotely. Nobody was inside it.
Cold gas thrusters make thrust by releasing stored compressed gas through nozzles. Nothing burns and there is no exhaust flame. Reporting after the event describes ten nozzles set around the Roadster's body, fed by a compressed air tank of about 260 kilograms carried where the rear seats would sit in an ordinary car. The system gives short bursts of lift and control in the air: enough to leave the ground, to hold or change the car's attitude, and to cushion a landing. It is not sustained flight, the air supply is finite, and the thruster version of the car is reported to not yet be legal for the street.
The night closed a wait of almost nine years. Tesla first showed the second generation Roadster on November 16, 2017, beside the Semi truck, and Elon Musk called it the fastest production car ever made. Musk talked about a thruster package that would let the car hover as far back as 2018. For this demonstration he promised more: on the Joe Rogan podcast on October 31, 2025, he said the demo would be unforgettable and possibly the most memorable product unveil ever, and at the All In summit in September 2026 he said excitement was guaranteed while success was not. The event was first set for October 1 and moved two weeks because of severe weather in central Texas, since it could only be held outdoors.
What comes next is production. Musk told Tesla shareholders in November 2025 that production would follow the demonstration by 12 to 18 months. The picture and the videos on this page are frames and recordings taken from the live demonstration broadcast.