Tesla bets its next growth story on a flying Roadster

Tesla put its long-delayed Roadster centre stage on Thursday night, and the electric vehicle maker used the moment to signal where it believes its next commercial upside lies: a flagship car that can, in the company’s own words, “basically fly like a rocket.” Elon Musk, presenting at the livestreamed event, told the audience the Roadster has “altitude control thrusters and main thrusters in the rear, so it can basically fly like a rocket.”

The demonstration was staged, in part, to reassure potential customers that what they were seeing was real. “We need an audience to prove that it’s not AI or SI,” Musk told the crowd. “So, you guys can tell people that you saw it with your eyes. Because what you see with your eyes, you will not believe.” After the car completed its stunt, he added: “Well, it worked.”

For a company whose valuation rests heavily on the promise of its next product, the Roadster is Tesla’s most ambitious bet yet. The car is the automaker’s only manually driven vehicle, and it was put through a dramatic display: driving up a towering, curved ramp, going upside down, launching off the end, flipping in mid-air and landing safely as the audience cheered.

Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, who presented alongside Musk, explained the engineering behind the stunt. The Roadster uses a “fan suction system” on the underside of the vehicle that he said can “pull up to 2 Gs in order to make the car go upside down.” Then, he noted, “we borrowed some technology from SpaceX to do the rest.”

Musk went further, joking that the car “can do rolls, it can do crazy gymnastics,” while acknowledging it was “not necessarily a safety optimised car.” A second demonstration put that claim to the test, with the Roadster driving up to a row of other Tesla vehicles before firing into the air and performing a “kickflip” over them. Another display showed the car accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in under one second.

Meanwhile, the commercial machinery is already in motion. Tesla’s website shows the company is now taking reservation orders, with three variants available: Performance, Thrust and Rocket. The Rocket version is listed as invite only. According to Tesla, the Roadster offers a range of more than 300 miles and a top speed of over 230 mph for the Rocket version.

Whether the flying Roadster translates into reservations and revenue remains to be seen, but Tesla has made its pitch to the market: a car that does what no competitor’s can.