Big night for Tesla (TSLA), and it involved SpaceX supplied cold gas thrusters. Here is what you need to know before your first coffee is done.
The Roadster finally showed up, and it flew. Tesla unveiled the new car at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, nearly a decade after the first prototype, and drove it up a curved wall before flipping it over a row of Tesla vehicles. Our own take is that it was a great show, though not the car we fell for: Tesla put on a great show tonight, but the new Roadster is not the car we fell for.
The sprint to 60 mph (97 km/h) took well under a second, with help. Road & Track, the long-established car magazine, reported that the first run was slower and the second came in at a claimed 0.8 seconds, thanks to rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters fed by high-pressure air tanks, not jet fuel. Treat it as a company demo of a prototype, not a figure for a street car.
The thrusters come from SpaceX. Tesla says the nozzles add up to serious thrust, and a fan system sucks the car down so it can hold to a surface. The website lists a "Thrust" version and an invite-only "Rocket" version that Tesla says is not approved for public roads, and Musk himself said he wasn't sure it was legal everywhere.
The car has changed a lot since the first show. Trending Topics, a European tech news site, puts the quoted range at more than 300 miles (483 km), well short of what was promised back then, and notes the old four-seater is now a two-seater. The design is an angular wedge, closer to the Cybertruck than the early concept, and Tesla did not discuss horsepower or battery details.
Production is promised for 2028, and there is no price. Musk said so with a laugh, adding "actually". The event had already slipped by months, then again because of strong winds. Reservations have reopened at $50,000, and Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein expects only modest sales, which Musk himself said may not move revenue much.
Would you put down a deposit on a car with no price and a start date years away? That is what Tesla is asking, according to its reservation terms.
The WattsUpNext take: Tesla's new Roadster is a thrilling stunt on a prototype, but with no price, thin specs and a 2028 start date, buyers are still being asked to pay first and learn the details later.
That's wattsup, and here's wattsnext: Ukrainian drone units lost missions and aircraft in Starshield cutoff
Sources
- 1.Tesla’s New Roadster Can Fly, but It Won’t Arrive Until 2028 | Trending Topics · Trending Topics
- 2.View Interior Photos of the New Tesla Roadster · Car and Driver
- 3.The Air-Assisted Tesla Roadster Flies in Demo, Hits 0-60 In 0.8 Seconds · Road & Track
- 4.Revealed! New Tesla Roadster Takes Flight and Does Barrel Rolls with the Help of SpaceX Thrusters · Car and Driver
Reported by the WattsUpNext desk from the sources linked below. Spot an error? Tell us at corrections@wattsupnext.com.
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