Tesla Roadster Flies Using SpaceX Cold-Gas Thrusters

A two-seat electric sports car launched off an inverted ramp, completed a midair flip, and landed upright on its wheels October 15 at a SpaceX test facility in Texas. The vehicle was Tesla’s long-delayed next-generation Roadster, equipped with compressed-air thrusters engineered jointly by the automaker and Elon Musk’s aerospace company.

The demonstration marks the first time a major automaker has publicly integrated spacecraft attitude-control hardware into a passenger vehicle prototype to achieve controlled airborne maneuvers. During the livestreamed event, the Roadster also cleared a row of parked Teslas that included a Semi truck.

Cold-gas thrusters rely on highly pressurized gas expelled through directional nozzles rather than combusted propellant. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, confirmed the system uses 10 thrusters connected to 600 liters of compressed air. Because the technology does not involve combustion or extreme heat, it avoids the thermal shielding requirements of traditional rocket engines, making integration into an automotive chassis theoretically simpler, though still unprecedented for road vehicles.

Tesla claims the Roadster exceeds 230 mph, delivers over 300 miles of range, and accelerates from zero to 60 mph in under one second. A clocked run during the Texas event registered 0.81 seconds. The automaker attributes the sub-one-second figures to the thrust vectoring provided by the SpaceX-derived hardware, which supplements tire traction during launch.

Buyers face steep barriers beyond physics. Reservations require $50,000 for the two-seat Performance variant and $250,000 for the Thrust model, with a $5,000 initial deposit and the balance due within 10 days. A single-seat version called the Rocket, built around the full flight system, carries no public price and is restricted to invite-only buyers. Musk stated production will begin in 2028.

That timeline confronts a regulatory landscape entirely unequipped for flying automobiles. U.S. automakers self-certify compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, but any vehicle operating as an aircraft requires an FAA airworthiness certificate. The agency estimates certifying a new aircraft category takes five to nine years. Tesla’s own website acknowledges the flying version lacks approval for public road use, and no FAA or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration clearance has been reported.

The closest industry precedent remains Alef Aeronautics, which secured an experimental airworthiness certificate from the FAA in June 2023 for its Model A precursor. That designation permits limited flight testing but falls far short of the type certificate required for commercial sales. State-level frameworks are equally nascent. Minnesota’s so-called Jetsons law allows residents to own roadable aircraft but prohibits taking off or landing on public roads, mirroring a 2020 New Hampshire statute granting private ownership rights without operational infrastructure.

Sustained flight introduces severe energy constraints that cold-gas systems bypass only temporarily. According to a 2021 study published in Joule, electric aircraft require 500 to 900 watts per kilogram to hover, compared to 150 to 350 watts per kilogram during forward cruise. Current lithium-ion battery densities make prolonged hovering virtually impossible for heavy ground vehicles. By using stored pneumatic pressure for ballistic jumps rather than continuous powered lift, Tesla avoided the battery-drain problem inherent to true flying car concepts like those pursued by Joby Aviation or Archer Aviation, which rely on lightweight vertical takeoff and landing airframes rather than modified sports cars.

Musk initially teased the Roadster’s flight capabilities during an October 2025 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, describing the vehicle as “crazier than all the James Bond cars combined.” The original second-generation Roadster was unveiled in November 2017 with a promised 2020 production start, a deadline that slipped repeatedly over six years.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who reserved a Roadster in 2018 and waited seven and a half years for a refund before publicly criticizing Musk, praised the October 15 demonstration on X, calling the car “quite amazing.” The announcement generated over 10 million views on the platform.

Tesla currently lists the 2028 production target as the definitive timeline for the Roadster program, with no homologated street-legal specifications released for the thruster-equipped variants.