Tesla Roadster flies at McGregor in the unforgettable demo Musk promised

Elon Musk told us exactly what was coming. On the Joe Rogan podcast last October he promised the Roadster demonstration would be unforgettable, with a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. In September he said it plainly: excitement guaranteed, success is not guaranteed. On Thursday night in McGregor, Texas, Tesla delivered the thing itself.

The event opened at 7:55 p.m. Central at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility and was streamed live on X. A film showed the car in X ray views, its structure, its fan and thruster hardware, and the cold gas system that makes the flight possible. The white production car then appeared on stage with its doors raised before the demonstration car took its place at the bottom of an enormous curved ramp.

On the first run the car climbed the near vertical ramp while live telemetry ran on screen. The pitch gauge reached 170 degrees and the altitude gauge reached 69 feet as the car hung inverted near the top, held against the ramp, before it descended and drove away. On the second run the car climbed again, left the top of the ramp entirely, fired its cold gas thrusters in the air, flew, and came down in a great cloud of white vapor, landing on its wheels and driving off under its own power. The car was operated remotely, with nobody inside.

The flight system is a SpaceX package of cold gas thrusters, which make thrust by releasing stored compressed gas and burn nothing. Reporting after the event describes ten nozzles set around the body, fed by a compressed air tank of about 260 kilograms carried where the rear seats would sit. The system gives short bursts of flight and control in the air. It is not sustained flight, and the thruster version of the car is reported to not yet be legal for the street.

The wait behind the night ran almost nine years. Tesla first showed the second generation Roadster on November 16, 2017, beside the Semi truck, promising the fastest production car ever made. The demonstration was first set for October 1 of this year and moved two weeks for severe weather, because the event could only be held outdoors. Musk told shareholders last November that production would follow the demonstration by 12 to 18 months.

He said the demo would not disappoint. The picture is a frame from the demonstration broadcast, recorded on the night. Both videos linked under this story were recorded from the live broadcast and are carried in full in the Inventions section of this site.