REVEALED: the new Tesla Roadster is finally here after nine years of waiting – and it can fly

“We need an audience here to prove it’s not AI”. Those were the words of Elon Musk at the reveal of the new Tesla Roadster, hosted from the SpaceX rocket testing facility. And a few minutes later, the car was airborne.

This mad-looking coupe has rocket thrusters, a 0-60mph time of under one second and a fan system which can suck the car down onto the road. Musk says this car will beat any track record in the world, but we’ll have to wait for the start of production in 2028 to find out if that’s true.

New Tesla Roadster: how fast is it?

Tesla didn’t reveal any concrete power figure for the Roadster, nor did it reveal how many electric motors it has, but the four rocket thrusters on the back produce 8,000Nm of thrust by themselves. This means it can do 0-60mph in under a second, which makes it the fastest-accelerating road car in the world.

To help with downforce, it also has a fan system to suck the car into the ground – just like a McMurtry Speirling. Tesla showed off this technology by driving it up a vertical wall, before briefly holding it upside-down.

New Tesla Roadster: can it fly?

In a live demonstration at a rocket testing facility, yes it can. The Roadster has a 600-litre air tank on board with 10 nozzles around the car, and in a live demonstration Tesla showed it taking off and flying over cars, as well as performing barrel rolls.

However, looking at the underside of this car while it’s in the air, it doesn’t look like this is more than a prototype. That metal frame chassis doesn’t look very production-ready, and as far as we can see there’s no suspension in it either, so Tesla may have some more work to do to bring this to market.

There was no one in the car for this stunt, but Musk did say that the Roadster would be the only long-term Tesla model which is manually driven after the rest of the range goes fully autonomous.

New Tesla Roadster design

The new Tesla Roadster looks nothing like the car which was first revealed way back in 2017. It’s much more angular than that car, with a low nose and triangular headlights which may remind you of a Lamborghini Aventador – albeit one rendered in 8-bit graphics.

It’s the rear which looks the most wild though, because you can see the four rocket thrusters poking out of the massive diffuser. It also has a full-width light bar, as opposed to the separate tail lights on the old Roadster concept, and there’s a massive deployable spoiler as well.

Inside, the cabin is typical Tesla fare. There’s a big central screen, very few physical buttons and a steering yoke connected to a steer-by-wire system like you get in the Cybertruck.

When will the Tesla Roadster go on sale?

You’ve been able to leave a deposit of almost £40,000 for a Roadster since 2017, but if you were hoping this reveal meant cars would be hitting the road soon then you’re in for a disappointment.

Series production is due to start in 2028, and a final price is still to be announced. We’d be surprised if you got much change from £100,000 though.

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