Tesla has revealed the second-generation Roadster at an event in McGregor, Texas, showing a car that can drive upside down, barrel roll in mid-air and hop over a parked Semi truck. The company claims a measured 0-60 mph time of 0.81 seconds, with production scheduled for 2028.
CEO Elon Musk also framed the Roadster as the end of an era: it will be the only manually driven car in Tesla's lineup long term, as every future model is designed around autonomy.
The reveal closes out a saga that has run since 2017, when the Roadster was first shown as a 2020 model and then delayed repeatedly. The car shown in Texas wears an all-new design compared with the version displayed in 2017, and Tesla has indicated that earlier iteration will never reach production.
Musk was candid about the risk before the demonstration. "By the way, success is not guaranteed," he said. "It'll probably work." It did: the Roadster drove along a massive ramp upside down using its suction fans, then flipped off the end and rotated a full barrel roll mid-air using cold gas thrusters, landing wheels-first.
Fans, thrusters and a 0.81-second launch
The party tricks rest on two systems. The first is a fan-based suction setup under the floor that pulls the car into the pavement. Tesla's vice president of engineering, Lars Moravy, said it can generate up to 2 g of suction, cornering force the company claims no existing car can match, and which Musk says will let the Roadster shatter track records.
The second is a cold gas thruster system drawing on work associated with SpaceX. It uses 10 nozzles and 250 kg of compressed gas as propellant, and Musk says it can refill its own tanks with compressed air. That is what powered the barrel roll and the hop over a line of Tesla vehicles.
On straight-line pace, the target was a sub-one-second 0-60 mph run. Tesla says it has already measured 0.81 seconds, and Musk claims the production car will go quicker still. Top speed has reached more than 230 mph in testing, with a longer-term ambition of half the speed of sound, roughly 383 mph.
The last Tesla with a steering wheel worth using
Musk was explicit about the Roadster's place in the lineup: "This will actually be long term the only manually driven car that Tesla makes." With the Model S and Model X on their way out, the sports car becomes the sole exception to an autonomous-first strategy.
That framing explains the performance obsession. "So if it's going to be the only manually driven car, let's take it to the limits and beyond the limits," Musk said, adding that the Roadster will "crush every track record that has ever existed".
The catch: 2028, and a lot of unanswered questions
Production is scheduled to begin sometime in 2028, and Musk says it will go on sale that year "for real".
What Tesla has not clarified is just about everything a buyer would need to know: pricing, range, battery details and the legal status of the thruster and fan systems. Musk noted the features may not be legal in all jurisdictions and stopped short of calling them street legal, and regulators seem unlikely to let drivers hop over traffic or vent compressed gas at supersonic speeds.
Skepticism is fair. This is a company that has blown past Roadster delivery dates repeatedly over nine years, and the previous reveal came with its own list of impossible-sounding specs. The deposit program, reportedly $50,000 for a car nobody had seen, predates even this reveal.
The smarter read for buyers is that the Roadster is now a real, demonstrated machine rather than a slide deck, but the gap between a staged demo in Texas and a delivered, homologated car in a driveway is where Tesla's promises have historically stretched. The challenge, as ever with this car, is actually building it.
