Tesla’s second-generation Roadster can hop over other cars using compressed-air thrusters, but lifting a car off the road takes grip away from its tyres. The quieter fan system underneath, which pulls the car down, is where the real engineering is.
Key takeaways
- Tesla showed the production version of its second-generation Roadster on 15 October 2026 near Waco, Texas, with production promised for 2028 and no price announced.
- Thrusters that push a car upwards reduce the load on its tyres, so the jumping manoeuvre adds weight and complexity without improving how the car drives.
- The underbody fan system, which creates suction to press the car onto the road, is the feature most likely to improve acceleration, braking and cornering.
- Every performance figure from the event is a claim by Tesla that has not been independently verified, and one live timing run failed.
The spectacle and the engineering point in opposite directions
The production Roadster was presented almost exactly nine years after the original surprise reveal in 2017. TechCrunch reports that the car drove up an inverted ramp and ran upside down, spun, and lowered itself back to the ground. It also used cold-gas thrusters, developed with SpaceX, to lift itself over a line of other Tesla vehicles while moving, a move Tesla calls a kickflip. Those images got the headlines.
The argument here is simple. The feature that made the event memorable, the car leaving the ground, works against the thing Tesla says the car is for, which is going faster than anything else on the road. The less visible feature, a fan system that sucks the car towards the tarmac, does most of the useful work. A technical breakdown by Electrek makes this case in detail, and the physics behind it is well understood.
This does not mean the thrusters are pointless. Some of them face in directions that could help. But the upward-firing thrusters behind the “flying car” label are, on Electrek’s reading, a party trick. The rest of this article sets out the evidence for that view, the strongest objections to it, and what would settle the question.
The product line matters because it shows where each feature sits. Tesla announced three trims. Performance is described as road ready, with two seats, active aerodynamics and a multi-mode suction system. Thrust is described as race ready, with two seats and rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters for 0-60 mph in under one second. Rocket is described as air ready and has only one seat, with 10 cold-gas thrusters placed around the car, including underneath. Tesla claims all three have 300 miles of range and a top speed above 230 mph. Reservations opened at 50,000 dollars for Performance and 250,000 dollars for Thrust. Rocket is by invitation only.
Upward thrust takes grip away from the tyres
A tyre’s grip depends on how hard it is pressed into the road. More vertical load means more grip, up to a point, for every job a tyre does: accelerating, braking and turning. This is why racing cars chase downforce. Electrek’s analysis notes that the opposite force, which it calls upforce, is a term nobody uses because no engineer wants it.
A thruster that pushes the car upwards produces exactly that. It reduces the load on the tyres, so they can transmit less force to the road. Once the car is off the ground, the tyres transmit nothing. For the length of a jump, the driver cannot steer or brake through the wheels. A car that clears five other vehicles in the air is showing control of the thrusters, not road performance.
The thrusters also cost something when they are not firing. Tesla engineering staff said the system uses 10 thrusters fed by 600 litres of compressed air in a rechargeable tank. Tesla said every usable empty space in the car is packed with Carbon Fibre Overwrapped Pressure Vessels. Tanks, valves, plumbing and thruster ports all add mass. Electrek points out that the presentation itself mentioned the basic relation that acceleration equals force divided by mass. More mass needs more force for the same acceleration, so hardware that adds mass without adding useful grip works against the car’s main selling point.
There is a safety side to the hardware as well. TechCrunch notes that this type of pressure vessel has been implicated in several SpaceX rocket explosions. That does not show the Roadster’s tanks are unsafe, but it is a reason for close scrutiny of a road car that carries compressed gas in every spare cavity. Tesla’s public comments at the event did not present safety as the car’s main priority.
The fan system is the genuine advance
Electrek treats the suction system as the real engineering. Fans pull air out from under the car, creating a low-pressure zone sealed at the edges by adjustable skirts. The higher air pressure above then presses the whole car downwards. The effect is like adding weight without adding mass. The tyres are loaded harder and grip better, but the car does not become heavier to accelerate.
This helps in a straight line as well as in corners. A car with near-instant electric torque is often limited off the line by how much force its tyres can put down before they spin. Pressing the tyres harder into the road raises that limit, which is why a fan system can improve a standing start.
The idea is not new. Electrek notes that the McMurtry Spierling, a small electric fan car, uses the same principle and can also drive upside down. The upside-down run at the Tesla event is a demonstration of suction, not of thrusters: the fans hold the car to the surface. Electrek identifies Tesla’s main contribution as the adjustable skirts, which could let the seal work on rougher surfaces than a smooth race track. If that works in practice, it would make fan-car downforce usable on ordinary roads, which matters far more for most drivers than the ability to jump.
The Performance trim is described as road ready and has the suction system but no thrusters. That suggests Tesla also sees the fan system as the part that belongs on the road.
The headline numbers rest on Tesla’s word alone
The performance figures need careful handling. A recorded run showed 0-60 mph in one second. A live run claimed 0.81 seconds after problems with the timer. Tesla later said the top version would do it in under 0.59 seconds. None of these figures has been independently measured. Electrek also notes that Tesla has not said whether its times use the one-foot rollout convention common in published 0-60 tests, which can change a result noticeably.
Electrek questions the downforce figure too. Tesla’s display claimed 4,700 kg of downforce and 2G cornering. The Roadster probably weighs less than 2,000 kg, although Tesla has not published a figure. By comparison, the Spierling weighs about 1,000 kg, produces about 2,000 kg of downforce and claims 3G of lateral grip. A car claiming more than twice the Spierling’s downforce while claiming less cornering grip is hard to reconcile, and Electrek suspects some liberties have been taken.
Slow-motion footage raises another question. Electrek observes that the thrusters seem to fire well before the car starts moving. If they need time to build pressure, the car may have a delay similar to turbo lag in petrol cars, which would give up the instant response that is one of the main advantages of an electric drivetrain. Whether that delay is counted in Tesla’s times is not known.
The strongest case against: not all thrust points upwards
The fairest objection is that the argument above is only about the upward thrusters, and the Roadster’s thrusters do not all point that way. Electrek accepts this. Thrusters that fire sideways could push the car through a corner with force that does not depend on tyre grip, raising cornering limits above what rubber alone can achieve. Rear-facing thrusters do something tyres cannot do at all: they push the car forward directly, so the standing start is no longer limited by how much force the tyres can transmit. Tesla quotes 80 kilonewtons of thrust from the four rear ports. If anything close to that is achieved, a sub-one-second 0-60 time becomes physically plausible, which no tyre-limited car could manage.
On this view, the thrusters as a system are a real performance idea and the jump is a side effect of having them. Once a car has pressurised gas and nozzles, pointing some of them downwards costs little extra, and the jump becomes free publicity. The Thrust trim, which has rear thrusters only, fits this reading: it puts the useful direction on a two-seat car and keeps the full set for the one-seat Rocket.
There is also a commercial argument. Alef Aeronautics released a video of its own flying car passing over the Roadster, describing the Roadster as the second flying car in history. Electrek reports that Alef’s chief executive welcomed the competition as helpful for establishing the category and its rules. Spectacle draws attention, and attention brings in reservations. Judged as marketing, the jump may be doing what it was meant to do. Tesla is also not alone in combining these ideas. Rivals already offer parts of them, including the Rimac Nevera R, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra with its Nürburgring record, and a BYD car that jumps using active suspension.
None of this saves the upward jump as engineering, but it does weaken the claim that the thrusters as a whole make the car slower. The more accurate version of the argument is narrower: the flying makes the car slower, while some of the thrusting may make it faster.
Independent tests and certification would settle it
Several kinds of evidence would change this conclusion. The most direct would be independent acceleration and cornering tests on production cars, using standard methods including a stated rollout convention, comparing the Performance, Thrust and Rocket trims. If Rocket, with its upward and underbody thrusters, matched or beat Thrust on track, the argument that those thrusters cost performance would be weaker. If it was slower or heavier, the argument would hold.
Published kerb weights for each trim would show how much mass the gas system adds. Measured downforce figures would show whether the 4,700 kg claim stands up against comparisons with the Spierling. High-speed footage with timing data would show whether the thrusters really do delay the car’s launch.
On the flying claim specifically, certification would decide what the car legally is. Alef has held an FAA Special Airworthiness Certification since 2023, reports 1,000 flights and more than 3,600 pre-orders worth about a billion dollars, and uses distributed electric propulsion with ambient air rather than stored gas, along with a ballistic parachute for the whole vehicle. The Roadster would still need to pass FAA Type Certification, a process that takes years. Whether Tesla plans to seek it is not known. Until there is independent testing or certification, the car’s flying is a demonstration, and its performance figures are Tesla’s own claims.
Sources and further reading
- TechCrunch: event report on the Roadster reveal near Waco, Texas, covering the demonstrations, trims, pricing and pressure-vessel concerns.
- Electrek: technical analysis of the Roadster’s fan system, thrusters, downforce claims and acceleration figures.
- Electrek: report on Alef Aeronautics’ response video and its certification and order figures.
- Federal Aviation Administration: background on the difference between special airworthiness and type certification for aircraft.
Surfaced from the manual signal “electric supercar launch”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
