Car Week 2026: Porsche brings back the manual, McLaren teases a road car, Ferrari goes one-off

Tesla's Flying Roadster Is Going to Be Bonkers

Tesla is planning an unveiling of its long-delayed new Roadster design as early as this month, and the demonstration will involve a collaboration with SpaceX featuring cold gas thrusters and what amounts to a Hot Wheels stunt.

The stunt is the real story here. According to The Information, Tesla's current plan involves a magnetized roller coaster-like ramp where the vehicle drives upside down before righting itself and hovering in the air. The demonstration will take place at SpaceX's testing site in McGregor, Texas, with spectators stationed several hundred yards away—the cold gas thrusters generate enough noise and vibration to potentially damage eardrums. The car will be remotely operated without anyone inside.

Musk has told Tesla staffers in recent weeks that the demonstration "will be difficult to pull off and could go awry but it will be entertaining regardless." That's a signal the company is aware this sits somewhere between engineering demo and stunt spectacle. Tesla hasn't confirmed whether the event will be live or recorded footage.

This roadmap has shifted considerably. Musk first promised the fastest production car in the world, then escalated to "crazier than every fictional James Bond car combined," then added flying. The company first showed a prototype design in 2017 and began taking reservations then, only to scrap that design entirely for a new one that hasn't been publicly revealed.

The actual production implications remain murky. Cold gas thrusters are not a feature that scales to a drivable consumer car. Breaking down what "flying" means—whether it's sustained hover, inches of clearance, or seconds of airtime—matters for whether this ever becomes a product versus a marketing event. The remotely operated, hundreds-of-yards-away demo suggests Tesla is aware of that gap.

What's real: Tesla's stock has lost nearly a quarter of its value this year. A spectacle of this scale serves multiple purposes simultaneously—it's a brand reinvigoration play, a way to capture attention amid EV market saturation, and a play on the Roadster's mystique as the car that legitimized Tesla in the first place. The original 2017 reservations are still in the queue, with a $50,000 deposit required to reserve one today.