Tesla unveiled its new Roadster sports car in a live demonstration in which the car drove upside down, launched off a ramp, flipped in mid-air, and briefly flew before landing. The event took place on 15 October at a SpaceX test site near Waco, Texas.

Elon Musk said the Roadster will enter production in 2028. Tesla has not announced a price.

The flying comes from compressed-air thrusters, technology borrowed from SpaceX, which push the car into the air and cushion its landings. Tesla says every usable space in the car is packed with carbon fibre pressure vessels to store the compressed gas.

A separate fan system creates enough suction to hold the car against a surface, which is how it stayed attached while driving upside down on a curved ramp. In the demonstration, the two-seater drove up a half-pipe, hung upside down, then launched off the top and stayed in the air for a few seconds.

It also took off from flat ground and cleared a row of parked Tesla vehicles, including the Semi truck. Tesla says the car reached 60 miles per hour, about 97km/h, in a claimed 0.81 seconds, which would make it the quickest production car in the world. The demonstration car was operated remotely with nobody inside, and Musk acknowledged that it is uncertain whether the flying capabilities will be street legal.

Tesla first showed a new Roadster concept in 2017 and missed several delivery dates since. It has reopened reservations in the United States, Canada and China, taking $50,000 deposits, about R845,000. Long term, Musk said the Roadster will be the only car in Tesla's line-up that people drive themselves, as the company moves towards driverless vehicles.

CNBC reported the demonstration and Musk's 2028 production target, and noted the Roadster is expected to be a high-end, low-volume model. Dezeen covered the design, with Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen describing an aerospace aesthetic. Shacknews described the live stream, including the car performing a flip over a line-up of Tesla vehicles.

The most interesting part of the Roadster is not that it flies but where the technology comes from. Cold gas thrusters and carbon fibre pressure vessels are standard parts of spacecraft, and Tesla has moved them across from SpaceX into a road car.

That kind of transfer between companies under the same founder, from rockets to cars, is something few manufacturers anywhere can do. It is the same engineering base behind Starship reaching orbit last month.

The practical questions are still open: the price, whether regulators will let a car with thrusters onto public roads, and whether 2028 holds. Also, will we ever see it launch in SA?

Even without the flying, a road car that reaches 100km/h in under a second would be a genuine engineering record. It also sits at the opposite end of Tesla's plans from the driverless Cybercab: one car with no steering wheel, and one built to be driven.

You might also like our piece on Eskom's first public EV chargers, the Riddara electric bakkie, and electric trucks testing SA's freight routes.

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