Tesla is taking $250,000 deposits for a Roadster with SpaceX thrusters. The FAA says it isn’t an aircraft

The flying car just got a little closer to reality.

Tesla’s long-awaited Roadster drove upside down along a curved ramp, launched into the air, rolled 180 degrees using bursts of compressed air and landed on its wheels during a livestreamed demonstration Thursday at SpaceX’s rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas, near Waco.

Moments later, it used its thrusters to leap over a lineup of Tesla vehicles , including a Cybertruck and a Tesla Semi.

“Turns out the future does have flying cars,” CEO Elon Musk wrote on X afterward.

Getting one into customers’ garages is another story.

When Tesla first unveiled its second-generation Roadster in November 2017 , flying wasn’t part of the pitch.

The company promised an electric supercar that could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, seat four people and travel 620 miles on a single charge .

Tesla began taking $50,000 reservations—or $250,000 for one of 1,000 limited Founders Series cars—and targeted a 2020 launch.

That date came and went.

Musk has repeatedly treated the sports car as a lower priority than Tesla’s other projects , while also blaming supply chain shortages for earlier delays.

On Tesla’s October 2024 earnings call, he thanked “the long-suffering deposit holders of the Tesla Roadster” and explained that the car was “not just the icing on the cake, it’s the cherry on the icing on the cake.” Tesla now says production will begin in 2028—eight years later than originally promised.

Three versions, one that flies The Roadster that took the stage Thursday is a radically redesigned car, built around the SpaceX thruster package Musk first floated in 2018 .

It comes in three versions: Performance, a “road ready” two-seater with active aerodynamics and a fan-driven suction system; Thrust, a two-seater that adds rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters for sub-one-second acceleration to 60 mph; and Rocket, an invitation-only single-seater with 10 thrusters arranged around the car that can briefly take flight.

Tesla engineering vice president Lars Moravy said the thrusters run on about 600 liters of rechargeable compressed air.