Tesla Roadster (tesla.com)

1001 pointsby shekhar10121 hours ago1801 comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p5LxFdc-Qg

https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/2110788059008819215

synapsomorphy 20 hours ago

Ok, so it actually flies. That was unexpected.

It's an incredible engineering achievement to build in massive fans and rocket engines into a high performance car. It's truly wild.

It's being sold in two modes. One with cold gas (no combustion) seemingly just for extra forwards acceleration (no flying) and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".

Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.

Even just the cold gas variant seems like a nightmare for production, there's a high pressure COPV in that thing and that's gonna make crashes much more.. exciting, and Tesla doesn't have a great record anyways. But very few of these are ever getting sold anyways.

delichon 20 hours ago

> kinda wild they devoted this much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Watch Ford v Ferrari for an idea of what auto companies are willing to invest for bragging rights.

estearum 20 hours ago

Ford and Ferrari aren’t on the brink of extinction

dboreham 19 hours ago

Tesla's stock price might be detached from reality, but is their actual business in trouble? I ask because anywhere I travel (Europe, UK, HK, NZ for example) there are just tons of Teslas, most of them the latest refresh models. There were more Telsas than BYD in Hong Kong!

guywithahat 16 hours ago

The business is doing fine, they’re profitable and regularly beating various targets. Honestly I think Elon is more level headed than people give him credit for, his companies are consistently profitable and generally produce competitive products.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/tesla/earnings/

9dev 15 hours ago

If anything his companies are doing well despite of him, not because of him. There's level-headed and competent leadership in them resisting his bullshit.

s08148692 13 hours ago

The counterpoint of course is that he has demonstrated a consistent ability to build and run successful businesses, many of which are extremely high risk

The only new western car company in decades to not fail, based on a technology nobody believed in at the time, least of all other car companies

SpaceX being a private space company, which was completely unheard of. No experts though they could succeed

Smaller earlier businesses like Zip2, paypal, etc

These are gigantic high risk companies with high failure probabilities, the chance they they all happened to be successful despite Musk and not at least in part because of him is stretching reasonable doubt for me.

I'm absolutely no fan of his politics or personality, but the man can run a business that nobody else even dares try (at least until he demonstrates viability and the market starts to generate competitors)

9dev 12 hours ago

I'd still restrict this to an ability to pursue ideas that others find too risky with relentless persistence and a laser focus. He is able to get something off the ground and make others believe in it, but not good at actually running a stable business. And that's fine, mind you, I absolutely respect what has built. But the person who is responsible for turning SpaceX from an incredibly risky bet into a profit machine is Gwynne Shotwell, not Elon Musk.

philistine 10 hours ago

Rivian, Polestar, Slate etc. Would like a word.

Of course it’s still early days for all these companies and they’re not exactly fiscally solid, but if Tesla had not made all those cars, someone else would have.

gunslinger_meta 9 hours ago

Revisionist history at its finest.

ben_w 7 hours ago

> The counterpoint of course is that he has demonstrated a consistent ability to build and run successful businesses, many of which are extremely high risk

Three sucesses.

Not so successful: Solar City, Neuralink, TBC, X.

(X exists, but before it was valued-and-bought by one of Musk's other companies, it appeared to have lost about half its value).

Richard Branson he aint.

solyin 3 hours ago

> Neurolink

They put out this video of a patient with ALS regaining the ability to communicate.

https://youtu.be/_j806JHhCRo

Hard to see that not being successful, once it passes the FDA, assuming it's real.

whycome 30 minutes ago

If the boring company potentially slowed competition for other Tesla focused options, is that not success?

dkuntz2 7 hours ago

paypal succeeded _despite_ musk and required a boardroom coup to remove him from leadership because he was about to tank the company. if he had is way nobody would remember paypal besides a couple people with merch for a long defunct company.

estearum 11 hours ago

Operating margin fell from 16% to ~2% over the last 10 years and will probably be negative in 2026 and 2027. They have a big cash pile to burn through but they’re spending it on ummm “a flying car,” humanoid robots, and an AI fab. They’re fucked.

funcDropShadow 10 hours ago

Similar, to the time Tesla was fucked, because they wanted to sell EVs when there was neither demand nor charging infra. Or when SpaceX wanted to build a rocket that could land on legs, whereas every wannabe rocket scientists knew that to be impossible.

estearum 9 hours ago

Or similar to the time Cybertruck was a giant success, FSD was ready in 2022, and Falcon 1 would launch 600kg for $7 million.

vessenes 9 hours ago

I'd be very surprised if the roadster project was particularly expensive. That operating margin tells you they are spending all the cash they are earning on cars on the other stuff, not that the cars suddenly became more expensive to make.

I'm interested to meet someone online who's short both on-shore US silicon fabs and the market for humanoid robots. Can you say more about your thinking?

estearum 9 hours ago

I'm short on an allegedly successful automotive company that has a rapidly deteriorating automotive business (due entirely to management's own decision-making) pivoting into the most hyped business ideas in the world. I'm bearish on the type of creative accounting and self-dealing we see between the Musk companies.

Musk is similar to Zuck in that they get some credit for sheer courage to turn the wheel on their massive businesses, but they also have to be right. Aside from his anticompetitive behavior, Zuck continues to miss. Musk's pattern has been that the more Musk is personally involved, the worse the outcomes. Cybertruck was his baby. Optimus is his baby.

If Tesla is doing so well as an automotive business, then why doesn't he just continue making it a great automotive business?

vessenes 7 hours ago

I mean the short answer is that it doesn’t temperamentally suit him to do so.

Maybe a mid length answer is if you agree with his assessment on say humanoid robots in terms of market and you believe they might have a geometric growth factor in production (eg robots can make more robots) then you’d want that business build out done by a team that can scale rapidly.

For fabs spacex and Tesla are significant consumers of the output- vertical integration is preferred by lots of companies.

estearum 7 hours ago

> I mean the short answer is that it doesn’t temperamentally suit him to do so.

Correct, and I think having a CEO who's totally unaccountable to a board and is temperamentally unable to focus on his core business is not good.

SpaceX and Tesla are nowhere near large enough consumers to justify vertically integrating a fab. The demand is predicated on Optimus producing millions of units per year.

This circularity will probably end up being seen in retrospect as so transparently absurd that it'll beggar belief that anyone accepted it.

vessenes 5 hours ago

I respect the perspective, of course, and cannot argue with the risk assessment.

That said I think these bets will pay off. Let’s check in in five years!

krisoft 3 hours ago

> Let’s check in in five years!

Do you have particular predictions we can evaluate in five years?

ChrisGreenHeur 2 hours ago

It will be his robot typing the message for him at that point

vessenes 2 hours ago

1) The fab will have been a highly profitable investment, possibly worth spinning out

2) more than 1mm optimus produced and sold in the US

Happy for any counters :)

estearum 2 hours ago

In five years? It would be an achievement if it's operating in five years. Absolutely zero chance it will be profitable by then.

1MM Optimus sold in the US is hilarious too.

Want to make bets on these?

HarHarVeryFunny 25 minutes ago

You've got to take Musk's forecasts with a massive grain (sack?) of salt. Pre-launch he was estimating making 250,000 Cybertrucks per year by 2025. So far, total sales over 3 years have actually been 60-70K.

I'd bet that in 5 years time Optimus total sales are in the 10's of thousands at best, with few to no large scale industrial users (other than self-use by Musk). Customers will be similar to what AgiBot and Unitree currently have - entertainment, hospitality, academic, small scale trials, plus a few Tesla fanboy sales that don't do anything actually productive.

estearum 11 hours ago

Yes their actual business is in trouble.

Why exactly do you think he keeps repositioning them as a robotics oh wait no I mean an AI company? Why is he clearly positioning Tesla to be acquired by SpaceX? Why is Tesla investing into xAI to be converted into SpaceX shares?

Tesla’s actual business, making cars, continues to degrade. The Roadster (obviously) is not going to help.

They have a huge balance sheet so it’ll take a while but Musk obviously sees the writing on the wall. The sheen is wearing off their shitty products and he doesn’t know how to add the sheen back or make the products less shitty.

throwawayfifo 8 hours ago

>Yes their actual business is in trouble.

No it's not.

>Tesla’s actual business, making cars, continues to degrade.

False. Revenue and deliveries beat so far this year, Q3 also a beat.

Don't let your Elon Derangement Syndrome cloud your ability to think rationally.

estearum 8 hours ago

You're aware that "beat" means "beat expectations," right? You're aware that expectations are increasingly that Tesla's business is struggling?

TSLA is down 18% YTD. That's because their business is doing so well?

throwawayfifo 7 hours ago

>You're aware that "beat" means "beat expectations," right?

You're aware that the "expectations" are they run a profitable company, right?

>You're aware that expectations are increasingly that Tesla's business is struggling?

You're aware that the expectations are increasingly that Tesla's business is stable, and showed record deliveries and backlog in Q2?

>TSLA is down 18% YTD. That's because their business is doing so well?

Auto manufacturing sector (DJUSAU) is down 16% YTD, and Tesla's stock is overpriced to begin with. Tesla's most direct competitor in the US, Rivian, is down 34% YTD. Stop getting your business/economic news from BlueSky/reddit.

estearum 7 hours ago

Yes, profitable with slowing growth, shrinking margins, and increasing competition. This is a death spiral for Musk's ultra capital-intensive mode of operating.

That's why Musk is trying to claim Tesla isn't an automotive company (except when comparisons to such suit him and his cultists, of course).

carlob 6 hours ago

> Stop getting your business/economic news from BlueSky/reddit.

And where should they get them? From Twitter?

throwawayfifo 5 hours ago

>And where should they get them?

Credible business/economic news outlets.

>From Twitter?

No.

estearum 5 hours ago

Like FT?

October 2: Tesla deliveries fall 2% as US consumers buy fewer EVs

July 23: Tesla shares tumble 11% as discounts hit profits

April 2: Tesla reports weaker than expected 6% rise in global deliveries

January 29: Tesla scraps models in pivot to AI as annual revenue falls for the first time

Tesla growth is slowing, margins are getting crunched, competition is heating up. Tesla knows they're fucked so they're pivoting into AI. The pivot into AI might work, but Musk himself unambiguously thinks Tesla is fucked as an automotive company.

whycome 36 minutes ago

Just wait til all teslas are roving cell towers connected to star link. Always capturing 3d data of every single street driven. There’s still so much room for weird big things with the network being built. Scary.

remus 4 hours ago

> Tesla's stock price might be detached from reality, but is their actual business in trouble?

I am not sure you can detach these two concepts. Tesla is currently valued around 3x the next top 5 auto companies combined, so to an extent you need to judge the company on these expectations. I happen to think they do have a pretty good business selling cars, and maybe a very good business selling autonomous cars, but there's so much uncertainty I think it is hard to see the current market cap as anything other than hugely inflated.

slig 10 hours ago

Yeah, I hear twitter won't survive the weekend too.

HarHarVeryFunny an hour ago

Twitter is essentially dead. If I go to my "For You" tab, it is literally 100% pro-Trump bot posts.

Musk keeps it running as a mouthpiece/propaganda and vanity project, but it's not a viable business anymore due to all the $13B Musk borrowed to acquire it, as well as loss of advertizers. It's estimated to break even on an operational basis, but loses about $1B/yr when you include interest on the debt.

whycome 38 minutes ago

Uh isn’t the “for you” literally the algorithm based feed for your direct interests? My for you page shows zero trump. And this is exactly the reason why it’s still so valuable, it can feed the echo chambers for individuals and keep them engaged (and seeing ads)

HarHarVeryFunny 17 minutes ago

I've no idea how the "For You" works, and my interests certainly do not include Trump propaganda. The only Twitter content I engage with is from people I follow, which is basically just AI/ML.

its_ethan 29 minutes ago

Is it dead? I feel like this is more of a "you" thing than you might realize. At least for sports, twitter is 100% still the dominant medium for reporting.

I'm looking at the same post on a players status for this weekend from 2 hours ago on 3 platforms:

- Threads: 5 likes, 2 comments, 15 shares

- BlueSky: 19 likes, 3 comments, 3 shares

- Twitter: 1500 likes, 105 comments, 281 shares

Doesn't really seem like twitter is the one that's almost dead...

HarHarVeryFunny 20 minutes ago

How much of that Twitter activity is human vs bot?

For anything politics related the activity is almost all bots.

whamlastxmas 7 hours ago

It's really difficult to see such ridiculous levels of hyperbole in every single Tesla thread and not think people are doing this in a coordinated way for ulterior motives

LooseMarmoset 28 minutes ago

you should read the comments on the ars technica segment of the roadster. hn isn't even close to that.

officeplant 3 hours ago

Endurance racing has 100% more practical uses than stunt car.

pastel8739 20 hours ago

to be fair we don’t actually know yet that this is a high performance car. We only saw it drive a few mph without rocket assistance

synapsomorphy 20 hours ago

Good point. It can't have much battery. Also wonder if the propellant/s are cryogenic. Monopropellant? You could tell from analyzing the plume.

40four 19 hours ago

I think everyone is getting too caught up in the Thrust and Rocket variants. There aren’t going to be very many of those. But the base model will just be a regular Tesla.

Someone 11 hours ago

> But the base model will just be a regular Tesla.

A regular Tesla that sucks, you mean?

Even the base model has “active aerodynamics and a multi-mode suction system that maximizes downforce for next-level performance on and off the track.”

LorenDB 19 hours ago

Sounds like it was just compressed air (rechargeable on the fly). Impressive if true.

pastel8739 17 hours ago

I am pretty skeptical that that’s actually what was used in the demo. It would be so much simpler to just use whatever they use for the rockets for the demo, which certainly isn’t rechargeable

T-A 14 hours ago

Only if you don't mind killing the audience:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Draco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomethylhydrazine

King-Aaron 16 hours ago

I've seen a clip that shows under the skin.

It's compressed air RCS. The compressor, regulators and a ton of hardware take up the entire space from the seats back to literally the very last inch of the car. Hard pipes run along the door frame for the forward RCS, meaning only one person (driver) can sit in it and enter from the drivers side. Huge carbon RCS tanks fill every other space.

No idea how long it would take to recharge the tanks after venting them.

There's no room for 'car' stuff in it.

Interestingly there is a big... sleeve of wizard... that extends down under the car to assist the ground effect fan. Packaging that and the RCS stuff into it is a real engineering feat.

But it didn't look to have crash structures, or any other production ready hardware.

somenameforme 16 hours ago

Link? Sounds interesting.

King-Aaron 15 hours ago

Found a link, I saw it on instagram initially but here's a screen recording on reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/s/efxEqCJxQR

ceejayoz 9 hours ago

SpaceX lost a Falcon 9 to one of these things rupturing. A car accident with these onboard sounds… unfun.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/03/13/nasa-releases-summary-...

ButlerianJihad 9 hours ago

So the GP describes compressed air, while Falcon 9 rockets use cryogenic helium, oxygen, and RP1 kerosene.

So I got no idea how you can even compare these two completely different systems and go from a launch failure to an explosive car accident?

ceejayoz 9 hours ago

They've had several COPV failures.

Including boring old nitrogen blowing up a Starship: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...

> "Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing," the company wrote in an update on Thursday (June 19).

If you SCUBA, your tanks need regular checks (https://dan.org/alert-diver/article/inspecting-and-testing-s...), because pressurized air can indeed kill (https://divemagazine.com/scuba-diving-news/diver-killed-in-s...) if the tank fails. The gas for these thrusters will happily accelerate you with the same force they're using to make a car fly given the chance.

saalweachter 4 hours ago

If a tank of 10k PSI compressed air ruptures, you're going to know it.

ceejayoz 2 hours ago

Not if you're close enough!

dghlsakjg 2 hours ago

At these pressures, it doesn't matter to the human body what is in the tank if it is at all compressible. If the tank fails, its gonna go badly.

Just for reference this is 50% more pressure than the pressure that crushed that submarine at the titanic.

sicher 15 hours ago

I would like to know two things:

1. Why don't they show a driver entering or exiting? 2. How much do that particular "car" weigh?

cjbgkagh 8 hours ago

They imply a heavy weight with the suction downforce numbers but I think those numbers are not real. I’m reminded of neural link where the pig food detector was unimpressive, then shortly later a monkey demo was very impressive, they have since had human trials and humans don’t appear to get anywhere close to that same level.

__m 44 minutes ago

They said there was no real driver in it for safety reasons

casualscience 20 hours ago

It's cool as fuck but calling it flying is misleading. It jumps and can maneuver in space.

pg_bot 20 hours ago

"That wasn't flying. That was falling with style!"

metabagel 19 hours ago

It’s a flying squirrel.

arjie 18 hours ago

Documented in this immortal scene from Samurai Jack: https://youtu.be/l2KCUaKK_0A?t=12

Aku: You can fly?!

Jack: No, jump good.

rogerrogerr 17 hours ago

> moving or able to move through the air with wings:

Okay, so I guess it doesn’t fly in the same way a rocket doesn’t fly? Distinction without meaning in this case.

gs17 2 hours ago

It doesn't fly in the same way I don't "fly" when I jump. You need to be on more than a ballistic trajectory.

olejorgenb 2 hours ago

uh. it doesn't fly as in it can't sustain flight...

hatthew 20 hours ago

It's very economically feasible if it pumps up the stock price

billfor 20 hours ago

I thought somewhere in the video they said that it is just regular compressed air that is held in a tank, and that the car itself has a compressor and regenerates the compressed air over time. Obviously to stabilize that amount of weight the gas has to be ejected at such a high rate it is practically frozen at the nozzle outlet, but it is still just regular air.

js2 20 hours ago

> and one with real combustion rocket engines

The site states it's cold-gas thrusters for both models: "Features a multi-mode suction system paired with cold-gas thrusters positioned around the perimeter of the vehicle that support forward and upward acceleration as well as lateral rotational movement."

jcheng 20 hours ago

Reading https://www.tesla.com/roadster, it seems like both variants only use cold gas thrusters, and the difference is that the "normal" (lol) one only has them pointed rearwards while the flying one has them pointed in all different directions as well.

jacquesm 20 hours ago

I'm sure having a cold gas thruster is going to be no problem at all for road approval. /s

lallysingh 19 hours ago

Best guess is that it's disabled for anything but track/trick stuff. There will be some cool videos eventually showing up with tricks people pull with this. I don't know what else it's for.

I can imagine the lateral thrusters helping it turn faster on the track. Although I wonder if the extra weight is going to net out positive for lap times.

But really, a few very rich people will buy the full-rocket version to impress their friends. They'll play with them on private property.

scheme271 18 hours ago

Solo track use at that. I can't imagine that other drivers are going to be all that happy if they get hit by the exhaust from one of the thrusters in a corner.

somenameforme 16 hours ago

Gases dissipate very rapidly, even moreso if doing pulsing or whatever. Probably very unsafe for a human standing literally right behind it, but it'd likely have 0 effect on another car at typical driving distance.

jacquesm 13 hours ago

Except for the bit where you can't see a thing.

TabTwo 5 hours ago

Great idea to use something like that in a tunnel or a garage. Suffocation - no breathing ... and probably some blown doors/walls from the pressure

Dylan16807 4 hours ago

Car tunnels should be able to handle that level of bad gasses.

trothamel 3 hours ago

How are you going to suffocate when the thrusters are sending out compressed air?

alxndr 18 hours ago

The crash photos are going to be Darwin-award-worthy

rbanffy 10 hours ago

I think every buyer should receive a complimentary nomination for the award.

flemhans 9 hours ago

I could see a safety feature where it launches itself into the air to avoid an imminent crash (providing the area above is free)

tocs3 8 hours ago

I suppose I can see this also. It sounds horrifying. A head on collision is a pretty terrible thing but having one of the cars suddenly fly 30 feet in the air and crashing into on coming traffic does not sound like a great option. Reminds me of the cybertruck "this would make the perfect post apocalyptic vehicle."

jayGlow 3 hours ago

you might have a better chance of surviving that 30 foot launch than a head on collision with a pole or a semi truck. don't get me wrong it seems wildly impractical but there may be rare situations where it's useful. ejection seats on fighters frequently injured their pilot but that is better than being dead.

jacquesm 3 hours ago

This whole thing is incredibly stupid and yet, people are bending over backwards to defend it. There is not a single traffic situation where the ability of a car to suddenly launch itself into the air doesn't have more downsides than it staying put. This includes overhead wiring, other people nearby, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, lampposts, traffic lights and other street furniture. With a little luck you will survive the impact of your toy when it lands but the party that you land on does not. People have a hard enough time predicting trajectories with everything constrained to 2D, if cars start jumping around like fleas that is not an improvement. From a standstill with other parties around you this is already a serious problem, if it were moving forward at highway speeds in traffic it would be utterly irresponsible to trigger this kind of launch.

qzw an hour ago

What, you don’t think the solution to a situation with too much out-of-control kinetic energy is to inject a whole bunch more semi-randomly-directed kinetic energy?

runarberg 31 minutes ago

You see, when you are about to have a crash, and you only have a few milliseconds to react, the best option is to put more energy into the event.

Symmetry 4 hours ago

That depends on the landing zone being available in a way that's hard for the onboard safety system to predict. But if the car is, say, spinning out you could use these to restore stability or try to recover from the other sorts of disasters that overpowered cars can end up in even on clear roads.

calvinmorrison 3 hours ago

once your wheels leave the road, its hard to slow down. Just getting to zero mph before flipping 100 times and rolling over would be immensely useful.

greedo an hour ago

What goes up...

baxtr 15 hours ago

[flagged]

mcrk 15 hours ago

The very first cars required to have a person walking in front of it with waving a flag as a warning.

HPsquared 14 hours ago

Red flag thing was the UK's Locomotives Act 1865, which dated from before what we call cars were invented. More aimed at traction engines (steam engines that go on the road). Exactly the type of regulation people like to mock the EU for.

Breza 9 hours ago

Last year I went to a steam show and had to share the street with giant steam tractors for the first time. That law suddenly made sense. The visibility and stopping distance aren't great.

trog 15 hours ago

Not like those genius Elon and American minds thinking "oh yeh rocket engines on cars makes a lot of sense", you're saying?

a96 14 hours ago

Funnily enough, he was also the first person to get a driver's license IIRC.

Arodex 14 hours ago

>So many things that were invented in Europe couldn’t be invented today

Like leaded gazoline, whose effects can still be seen presently...

triceratops 7 hours ago

That was invented in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

hinkley 2 hours ago

I can think of no better person to have been hoisted on his own petard than Midgley. He also gave us the ozone hole. Veritasium has a great hit piece on this utter maniac.

Arodex 14 hours ago

How long is the US going to allow a car able to jump over Hostile Vehicle Mitigation barriers?

cucumber3732842 12 hours ago

Like everything else we regulate.... right up until it becomes cheap enough that "undesirables" might get their hands on them.

jacquesm 13 hours ago

No, that's the mind of a person speaking that is thinking of the motorcycle standing at the traffic light just behind this car. Action, reaction, that sort of thing.

rbanffy 10 hours ago

> That’s the European mind speaking.

No. That's the road safety mind speaking.

InsideOutSanta an hour ago

Somehow I feel like "putting highly explosive canisters all around a car" is not the best example for why regulation is bad.

tomhow 8 minutes ago

> That’s the European mind speaking.

Swipes are not allowed on HN, and comments that invoke national/regional/cultural stereotypes are particularly out of line here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

turtlebits 4 hours ago

It's for the ultra rich and a tech showcase, so probably will be classified as off-road use only.

jacquesm 3 hours ago

Here's to hoping it will end up with the same reputation as the e-type.

thefourthchime 2 hours ago

I mean, Leno drives around with a jet engine motorcycle that can melt the guy behind him.

jacquesm 13 minutes ago

Yes, there are other idiots.

m463 19 hours ago

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Can't help but think of the not-a-flamethrower

(friend bought one for $500, now they seem to be worth $1500-$2000)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company#Merchandise

CamperBob2 19 hours ago

Isn't it just a relabeled weed burner?

defrost 19 hours ago

Reshaping of a classic blowtorch - if you're looking for a level up, try the Rodenator - less immediate flame, way more bang at the end.

m463 19 hours ago

The Rodenator is an applicable device that injects a precise mixture of oxygen and propane into the dens of burrowing rodents, and kills them with a concussive force that collapses the rodents' tunnel system as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_B_Meyer_Inc.

that sounds quite amazing, and it looks like something out of ghostbusters.

compiler-guy 2 hours ago

It isn’t “just” a relabeled weed burner, it’s a relabeled weed burner... with a fancy plastic shell.

And that makes a big difference, right? Right?

nullocator 19 hours ago

I suspect it "actually flies" much the same way the cybertruck is bullet proof and has an ultra hard stainless steel exoskeleton, in that it doesn't. This seems like smoke and mirrors conman shit pumped up to 11.

rogerrogerr 17 hours ago

Is your assertion that the car shaped object we watched drive for a distance and then levitate over a distance was something other than a car that actually flies?

BigCatStuff 17 hours ago

What distance did you actually see it "drive"? There is no evidence that the car shaped object was anything but a lightweight shell using compressed air to levitate and do tricks like any modern day drone can do.

Here's an RC car that can drive on the ceiling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uR_mNcRlNsA

vessenes 9 hours ago

Well, Elon said the final prod car would be lighter; whether or not they achieve that goal, the strong implication: the car has a battery and power train in it. Also, we saw it drive up the first part of the ramp without any air seeming to come out the back, and reverse down slowly; there don't seem to be forward facing fans/jets from the looks of the air coming out. I'd say Occam's razor is that the car has a full electric system in it.

olyjohn 7 hours ago

I can move my gas powered car that far if I leave it in gear and run it with the starter. Is my car electric?

Volundr 6 hours ago

I don't doubt it's got an electric system in it. I doubt it's got a battery sized for anything beyond that demo, a sufficiently rigid frame for road use, a reasonable steering and suspension system, etc.

My general assumption is that anything and everything that wasn't necessary for that demo was removed to trim enough weight to make the demo possible.

rlander 4 hours ago

Here's the evidence: https://youtu.be/_lq-DpCE9rU?si=DF8YVr5AB35pKN4i&t=924

bayarearefugee 2 hours ago

That is clearly not the same car considering you can see the car they are talking about off to the right in the distance (it, rather suspiciously, never leaves the curved vertical track area).

You fell for Elon's three-cup monte.

justinhj 4 minutes ago

you all sound absolutely insane btw

I-M-S 2 hours ago

The car being filmed and the car that did the stunts are not necessarily the same. See this image for what seems to be an empty husk of the car that actually "flew": https://imgur.com/a/uH9qCxr

philistine 10 hours ago

Watch The man with the golden gun. You’ll see a car do a corkscrew jump. Does that mean all cars of that brand could do that jump?

What we saw was impressive, but it’s a trick. The car’s tanks are surely empty after this, and now you have a loud compressor filling them up for minutes. You can’t use those thrusters near people and cars cause you’re at risk of getting them in trouble.

It’s part of a long history of useless tech in supercars. Impressive, but useless.

whycome 41 minutes ago

How is that a trick? So far it seems that was exactly what was advertised?

nullocator 9 hours ago

I certainly don't think it was a car that flies. It could be a car that can do dangerous party tricks for no practical reason but I kinda doubt that do. Hell we live in an AI world now, why are you so confident it's what they claim it is, what in Musk or Tesla's track record indicates that this is anything but a hype effort?

rogerrogerr 7 hours ago

If they used AI to fake a live demo in front of a bunch of people, that would be exceedingly impressive.

fckgw 2 hours ago

Would you say a bullfrog that can hop from pad to pad can fly?

cwillu an hour ago

A frog can't hover for any amount of time.

InsideOutSanta an hour ago

You watched a demo of a car-shaped object flying. Was it an actual car, or just a shell that looks like a car? We won't know until it's actually on sale and in customer hands what this is going to be.

It wouldn't be the first time Musk demoed something and promised something and then never ships.

lucideer an hour ago

I'd assert that it being something other than a car is an extremely reasonable assumption given all evidence available.

ex-aws-dude 27 minutes ago

What is demo'd and what actually ships are two completely different things

I'm not saying its impossible but it seems pretty naive to just assume on face value

testing22321 8 hours ago

The cyber truck is more bulletproof than any normal car, there are tons of videos of it stopping handgun rounds.

For what it’s worth, my $600 hunting rifle will go clean through both sides of any bulletproof vest, and it’s nothing special.

For everything that is bulletproof, there is always a calibre of projectile that will go through it.

jfoster 19 hours ago

They save on advertising to spend on mind-blowing demos.

BigCatStuff 18 hours ago

The demo car they showed most likely has no batteries or even a metal frame. They basically built a car shaped drone powered by compressed air.

Example RC toy car that drives on the ceiling: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uR_mNcRlNsA

rlander 4 hours ago

I don't think so: https://youtu.be/_lq-DpCE9rU?si=DF8YVr5AB35pKN4i&t=924

lucideer 34 minutes ago

He says in that video that they opened up the doors to show them that model, so it's unclear it's the same one "driven" for the demo.

Even if it is, they show interior, wheels & a distance shot of the rear opening showing a large air tank - very little can be seen of the actual chassis or engine.

Whatever tricks were done for the demo - whether the car is real or fake - it's highly unlikely what was shown today will ever be like-for-like accessible to consumers in the production model.

neural_thing 17 hours ago

It's not about sales numbers, it's about putting rockets in cars, so that SpaceX can acquire Tesla and give Musk supervoting shares

mrtksn 16 hours ago

> devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible mode

Just like economically infeasible Twitter, it has tremendous PR value. There is a huge economy revolving around people annoying other people just for a glimpse of their attention. This captures the attention and pleases people. Other car companies should start getting creative too.

rbanffy 10 hours ago

> Just like economically infeasible Twitter, it has tremendous PR value

The power to shape governments to his liking is worth a lot more than what he paid for Twitter.

bohney 7 hours ago

The power to shape governments to his liking is exactly why we've got to demand those governments to rein him in.

nxm 7 hours ago

Like the Biden administration which essentially forced Twitter to censor posts to their liking? Those governments we want?

verdverm 5 hours ago

Seems that is what both parties that control our government want

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/how-the-military-will-hack...

Aarostotle 2 hours ago

New account comes in to insinuate support about government taking over Musk’s businesses. Hmm.

modeless 16 hours ago

The website lists three modes, which all have the fan but differ in thrusters. The variants are: no thrusters (thus no COPV), acceleration-only thrusters, and flying thrusters. The flying one has the disclaimer "Note: Not approved for public road use." OTOH the acceleration-only thrusters may be street legal. However, I expect that the COPV will be kept empty (thus not dangerous) unless you select a special "launch mode".

Hopefully there will also be a warning siren while it is pressurized. "Dangerous enough to need a warning siren" seems like a plus for the target market, honestly.

sicher 16 hours ago

> .... into a high performance car

If that is what they have done. That may just be a large drone looking like a car.

dubeye 14 hours ago

Plenty of concept hypercars barely scrape 100 sales, the point is largley marketing in most cases

chinathrow 13 hours ago

> and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".

I don't think they'll sell these, at all in the future. No way they'll hound out actual rocket engines to en users. Too much IP in there.

DennisP 4 hours ago

They might not consider the cold gas thrusters to be particular trade secrets. They're very simple devices.

bulbar 13 hours ago

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

Teslas evaluation is based on hype. This is as hype as it gets for a car. To me it looks like they were in need for "the coolest thing". To me, this has the smell of desperation implying the beginning of the end of their high evaluation.

raxxorraxor 10 hours ago

No chance it will get a permission to drive on the streets in my country. It also is a completely useless feature but it is still awesome.

Guess it is for advertising mainly.

justin66 9 hours ago

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

You could say the same thing about the Cybertruck.

JeremyNT 8 hours ago

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.

It's staggering to consider how many resources we've diverted from people who could use them into building this novelty.

If ever there was a sign of a society of decadence in decline, it's that the most powerful person on earth is free to create toys like this exclusively for others in the ruling class.

adamsb6 8 hours ago

When has frontier engineering ever gone directly to low cost mass production?

"Crazy new thing also crazy expensive" is the norm, not a regression.

spullara 6 hours ago

The rocket version is also just cold gas thrusters, not carbon fuel based.

nycdatasci 6 hours ago

There are three modes: Performance ($50k reservation), Thrust ($250k reservation), and Rocket (invite only). Thrust and Rocket mention cold gas thrusters. Where do you see a combustion rocket engine advertised? https://www.tesla.com/roadster

delichon 2 hours ago

I'm glad that marketing was able to talk Elon out of modes Suck, Blow and Boing.

criemen an hour ago

SpaceX Tesla crossover. Not exactly what was on my bingo sheet today.

AlexandrB 5 hours ago

> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

If this ships, it will deliver a fraction of what's promised here. My money is on the "flying" version being delayed repeatedly until it's quietly cancelled. Anyone remember the fast battery change stations[1]?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj6LaYFall4

celestialcheese 5 hours ago

Have they announce pricing on the rocket version? I could see it being priced like a bugatti or koenigsegg, where selling 100-500 of these is a great business.

nater5000 4 hours ago

>Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.

It's only wild if you ignore Musk's role in this. Not even trying to bash him or anything, but he's a trillionaire. This is the kind of shit you do when you have more money than you can ever possibly waste.

I mean, if this is how he wants to spend his money, then I guess that's his prerogative. But I think it's a bit misleading to suggest this is a decision made by "Tesla" when this is clearly an irrational decision for a company to make. This is a decision made by Musk based on satisfying his own personal goals.

lotsofpulp 4 hours ago

Musk does not have anywhere close to a trillion US dollars.

dwedge 42 minutes ago

In his pocket or what? When SpaceX IPO'd he was valued at over a trillion USD. Currently somewhere over 900MM, and worth more than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th on the rich list combined.

In terms of net worth, you are closer to Jeff Bezos than Bezos is to Musk.

solyin 41 minutes ago

And we are all closer to being millionaires than both of them.

tgtweak 4 hours ago

That is incorrect - there are three versions slated, one with no cold gas nozzles, one with forward-only (the 4 in the rear) and a tank in the rear "acceleration", one with 10 nozzles (4 under, 2 side, 4 rear) and a tank in the rear and passenger seat "flight". None of the variants use rocket fuel or other ignited propellent, they're all just compressed gas release systems.

This is explained in the deep dive video with Lars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rvpUecLts

ASalazarMX 4 hours ago

Honey, did you remember to also charge the compressed gas tank on the Tesla?

Sorry, I'll start it from the app!

chug chug chug chug

turtlebits 4 hours ago

From the interview, they says it takes 6-8 hours to fill and you get 1 "launch" before its depleted in under a second.

xattt 3 hours ago

This is just gooning with a drivetrain.

LogicFailsMe 3 hours ago

Opposite of gooning no? More like Mr. 2 seconds leaving one's partner stimulated but unfulfilled.

gs17 2 hours ago

I think they more meant the "6-8 hours to fill and you get 1 launch" aspect. The gooning starts in the garage.

Aarostotle 2 hours ago

Of all things, how is this the most reasonable, even-handed disagreement in this thread?

LogicFailsMe 41 minutes ago

Because that's how things work now. But also, no disagreement, the gooning is absolutely in the 6-8 hours not the 5 seconds of joy joy.

mulletbum 4 hours ago

I like how "Jetson car" goes from driving George to work through the air to "10 seconds of air time is a Jetson car." No, it is nothing like the Jetsons. It is a cold air bomb waiting to explode and there is zero chance of it actually hitting the road other than in a few fake forms to pretend they did it.

mips_avatar 3 hours ago

It's basically the batmobile from Dark Knight. A small bridge jumper. Still pretty cool

mysterydip 2 hours ago

Didn’t that also actually work? IIRC they wanted to develop something that could realistically do it. This seems to confirm: https://batmobilehistory.com/tumbler-batmobile.php

bragr 9 minutes ago

The Batpod bike was also practical, although infamous for being super hard to drive unlike the batmobile leading to a now infamous crash with an imax camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdMpxN-7_rw

PorciiVorbesc 2 hours ago

>A small bridge jumper.

Or an easier way to escape rioters blocking the road and threatening your life.

420official 2 hours ago

Imagine what these air blasters would do to a pedestrian. This is never going to hit the road like shown.

SketchySeaBeast an hour ago

Not just pedestrians. Nearby car windshields.

tedggh an hour ago

I think future technology will allow the car to detect another car or pedestrian too close to the exhaust system and disengage it. I don’t know, some wild thought I just had.

scythe 39 minutes ago

You can't just "disengage" a car that's six feet off the ground. You have to land it gently with the nozzle engaged or you don't have a car anymore, and maybe you don't have a driver either.

jordanb 3 hours ago

I felt the same way when they were calling the Segway skateboards "hoverboards" and referring to back to the future.

420official 2 hours ago

I'm not sure I'd agree that "Traditional wheel powered transportation vehicle" is in the same category as "Useless hovering car with giant dangerous high-pressure nitrogen tank that can cause serious bodily injury to pedestrians and occupants"

EA-3167 18 minutes ago

On the other hand "Hoverboards" became famous for bursting into flames so vigorously that people thought they were exploding, so maybe there is a deep connection. Then again "Hoverboards" were actually available on the market as advertised for quite some time, which is probably going to differentiate them from yet another Musk gimmick.

Add it to the list, boys! "Inflatable Rescue Submersible", FSD, Bulletproof windows, Mars any day now, Hyperloop... am I missing anything?

LogicFailsMe 3 hours ago

Now do the definition of AGI.

kreetx 2 hours ago

I guess any LPG-installed car is also a "bomb" by your definition?

devonbleak 2 hours ago

my quick search says LPG-installed cars run at 5-10 bar. the roadster apparently at 350 bar. by comparison one is on the scale of car tires and the other is like 35x that.

hinkley 2 hours ago

For reference, tractor trailer tires run about 7 bar and we’ve all see those videos.

tintor 37 minutes ago

But also LPG is extremely flammable, while air isn't, and air can be safely leaked in emergency.

vel0city 32 minutes ago

This is enough pressure to launch a car and flip it in the air, you can't just "safely leak" it at any useful rate of speed in an emergency. In an emergency it will rapidly explode.

enaaem 33 minutes ago

Using Brode's equation a rupture can release 52MJ of energy or 12kg of TNT. An high explosive tank shell only has 11MJ of explosive energy.

kulahan 2 hours ago

You think the jetsons vehicle wasn’t a flying bomb? You’re comparing a real, actually-flying car with a cartoon fantasy and complaining the real one isn’t real enough? I don’t even understand what the point here is

kaashif 36 minutes ago

The point is that a car flying for 10 seconds is nowhere near the Jetsons car.

We actually do already have Jetsons style flying cars - those things that look kind of like big drones are basically that, and those are actually practical.

Forget the comparison to the Jetsons if it upsets you, let's just compare to actual flying vehicles.

kulahan 28 minutes ago

I was mostly being pedantic in response to the extreme pedantry required to differentiate between “doing a barrel roll using cold gas thrusters” and “flying”. My point is that it is of course flying, and the reason cars don’t fly at all normally is because it’s insanely dangerous, so saying it’s not a flying car because it’s dangerous is both disingenuous and wrong.

buzzerbetrayed an hour ago

I bet Tesla is kicking themselves for not consulting mulletbum before building. They could have caught this if only the actual engineers at Tesla had your input.

tintor 40 minutes ago

It doesn't have to be pressurized at all times!

You could only pressurize it right before your jumping stunt.

LightBug1 25 minutes ago

Highly practical. Basically a clown car.

politician 38 minutes ago

Do you feel the same way about every Red Bull stunt?

hinkley 2 hours ago

You know the force from these thrusters is going to injure a pedestrian and the whole idea will be scrapped.

They can’t even build a proper Mini anymore because the hood was so low it elked pedestrians face first into the windshield.

cwillu an hour ago

It's never going to be street legal, and I doubt there was ever a plan to try.

gambiting an hour ago

The cybertruck is so dangerous to pedestrians it would never pass homologation pretty much anywhere outside of USA, and yet it sells there. If the roadster is sold anywhere it will be there too.

kphorn 29 minutes ago

If the flying version is ever sold (unlikely) it will be subject to flying thing rules (FAA). Best case it would be like buying a used F1 car from Ferrari. They retain possession and you get to occasionally fly in on the private jet and drive it under supervision on a racetrack.

It’s cool tech demo. I’m not expecting to see one fly in private hands ever.

MSKJ 4 hours ago

Tesla has a very good record for crashworthiness

And supercars are typically not submitted for NCAP testing, so It'll likely be less safe than a Model Y for example (to be determined, no reports out yet)

https://www.euroncap.com/assessments/tesla/model+y/0961/

RunSet 3 hours ago

> Ok, so it actually flies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhVLgTsoMhQ

antfarm 3 hours ago

"That wasn't flying! That was... falling with style!"

dotancohen 3 hours ago

  > Tesla doesn't have a great record anyways.

If I'm not mistaken, and please somebody correct me if I am mistaken, Teslas meet or exceed the absolute highest safety regulations in the US and in Europe.

blipvert 3 hours ago

The “Cybertruck” (ffs …) is not legal in the EU due to safety regulations, so I would say that you are mistaken.

gopher2000 2 hours ago

That feels like it's much more "by design" than "cannot meet regulations".

hinkley 2 hours ago

Immaterial to the original claim.

blipvert 2 hours ago

“We designed the Tesla Deathtrap 300 to explicitly break any regulations regarding danger to human life”

vovavili 32 minutes ago

Says more about the EU than about the Cybertruck.

murderfs 23 minutes ago

It's not legal because it's unsafe for pedestrians, not for people inside the car.

francis_lewis 18 minutes ago

That still seems like the kind of safety we should care about

zombocomvibes 2 hours ago

They have the highest rate of fatal accidents across all car brands, more than double the average.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-has-highes...

nomel 2 hours ago

Safety of a car is a different axis than safety of the driver. That combines them. Related, it's why performance cars have higher insurance rates: people who buy fast cars go fast.

yugoslavia4ever an hour ago

paid

nomel an hour ago

I would claim "has a most basic understanding of statistics".

BalinKing an hour ago

Your comment is—at best—misleading. See the last two paragraphs of the article:

> The study's authors make clear that the results do not indicate Tesla vehicles are inherently unsafe or have design flaws.... Many of the other cars that ranked highly on the list have also been given high ratings for safety by the likes of IIHS and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, as well....

> “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities”....

garbagewoman an hour ago

You forgot to point out which part of the comment was misleading

thuridas an hour ago

Like the people who get trapped in case of accident when the electricity fail and is burned inside?

josephcsible 15 minutes ago

Every Tesla ever made has a door release that doesn't require any electricity.

jacquesm 2 minutes ago

The discovery of which is an exercise left for the participant in this exciting escape room on wheels.

https://vsp.virginia.gov/virginia-state-police-trooper-rescu...

And 14 others - that I'm aware of - to date.

lucideer an hour ago

EU safety regs are pass/fail - there's no sources stating Tesla have exceeded anything there, they need to pass in order to be sold in Europe, so they've done whatever the minimum required is for that. To do so, they've needed to make numerous compromises & changes to their cars to make them fit for the EU market - notably no FSD. Hardly indicative of a car brand that exceeds anything.

As for US safety standards, that seems a lower bar...

geoduck14 an hour ago

>Ok, so it actually flies

I'm going to quote Buzz Lightyear: this is falling... with style.

On a serious note, this was unexpected. You can't deny, he has style

pbhjpbhj 21 minutes ago

>he has style

Those SS uniforms were snappy.

But what is the point of this? Did Musk think everyone would forgive him, turn to white-supremacy and re-vote in his patsy's associates if only they saw a weird car demo?

whycome 44 minutes ago

Where the heck did you see combustion based rocket engines? I haven’t seen that come up once. Was it an AI response? And the video feature only cold gas rockets as far as I knew.

politician 33 minutes ago

In the Top Gear interview, they even state that using a fuel "would not be a Tesla thing to do".

lisper 41 minutes ago

> Ok, so it actually flies.

For a few seconds. It's a parlor trick. And the flying configuration will not be street-legal.

quijoteuniv 38 minutes ago

Un incredible achievement that betters humanity. Amazing

throwawayq3423 36 minutes ago

It is concept art and a bunch of promises.

ericcumbee 25 minutes ago

I'm wondering if its going to be a model like I think Ferrari calls it Cliente Ferrari. Where the car stays with Ferrari, they put on track days at great tracks all over the world. Bring Pro Driver Coaches, Mechanics , Massage Therapists, five star chefs Data Analysts to review your performance. From my understanding Ferrari makes a lot of money doing that.

_s_a_m_ 20 minutes ago

anything still takes this conman serious? Must be bots..

IncreasePosts 4 minutes ago

This will be the justification for merging SpaceX and Tesla.

"Integrating SpaceX thruster tech is absolutely essential to Tesla in the future!"

mNovak 4 hours ago

Everyone's focusing on the cold gas thrusters, which of course is very cool, but not actually shocking that it technically could be done (economically is another question).

But can we talk about the just casually driving straight vertical or sticking to the ceiling? I didn't think that would be technically possible for a 1000kg+ car with probably at least 2" of ground clearance.

There's presumably very limited stores of compressed gas, so you might get one hop or a couple 0-60 boosts per charge. But with electric fans, suction is a feature with much longer duration (minutes?), so you could feasibly do the batman driving on the tunnel ceiling past traffic trick.

LetsGetTechnicl 4 hours ago

Saw pictures of its undercarriage on Twitter and it looks like it well have been a empty shell of a car

cheeze an hour ago

Link?

wombat-man an hour ago

I saw the pictures but it wasn't clear to me that it was empty. I certainly saw comments saying it was. It looked like it was flat.

baron816 4 hours ago

Really doubt that demo was on a 10k kg car. It was probably stripped down to practically a shell for that trick.

gopher2000 2 hours ago

> 10k kg car

Did you typo this? Absolutely no way it's a 10 metric ton car.

nathannecro 3 hours ago

This is not actually the first time that this idea of using a fan to create downforce. It's been something that's been talked about and modeled for a long while and I think a few years ago, the McMurtury Speirling was released. That set the lap record at Laguna Seca among other achievements. The car is about a million dollars, and the fans are basically completely useless anywhere that's not a curated track (think stones, dust, wood, other FOD going through the fans).

The new roadster is obviously cool, but it looks like a practically useless vehicle for 99.9999% of the population. It's purely going to be a track princess -- with lots of extra weight for frankly pointless (but very cool) thrusters.

adamm255 3 hours ago

There was a Fan Car in F1 decades ago. Was good until it was banned!

nathannecro 3 hours ago

Yeah, it turns out that in very specific and controlled situations, using a fan to make downforce is great. It's also a very obvious thing to do in those situations and doesn't do much for you otherwise.

Imagine a normal car having to carry around the added weight of fans, COPVs, and the plumbing to make it work. And only being able to use those only if the track is clean and there are no other cars nearby.

kulahan 2 hours ago

This is like asking to imagine a Hoover vacuum to have those fans. It’s silly because it would never happen. This is not a normal car. Comparing it to a normal car makes no sense.

cheeze an hour ago

The Chaparral 2j is one of the most inventive and cool looking cars I've seen.

Not f1, Can-Am but yeah, I'm really surprised this isn't a more common approach to modern track cars. Obviously banned in most motorsport but I'm surprised with all of the one-offs these days that it's not more common.

nomel 2 hours ago

It has pretty good filtration [1], and redundant fans. Some rocks aren't a problem. But, you can't be driving through LA.

[1] https://youtu.be/xkXvL8YCtIE?t=721

mullingitover 2 hours ago

You can’t drive it anywhere that manhole covers might exist, lest you destroy the car and/or turn the manhole cover into a deadly projectile.

palata 19 minutes ago

> but it looks like a practically useless vehicle for 99.9999% of the population

Well it's effectively useless for 100% of the population. It's just that 99.9999% cannot afford an expensive, useless car. Some people can, though.

bittercynic 2 hours ago

I very much doubt the machine we saw flying was 1000kg+. It was either MUCH lighter, supported by cleverly hidden cables, or some other trickery. The dramatic lighting isn't just for visual effect, it makes it easier to hide the reality of the demonstration.

If there was a live audience anywhere near that stage they wouldn't have been able to use thrusters to fly something that actually weighs as much as a car.

thefourthchime 2 hours ago

Man, you guys are nuts. Cables? really?

cjkaminski 2 hours ago

Remember when Elon announced a humanoid robot by using a dancer in a robot costume? Seems reasonable that he would have some "technical assistance" to make his stage show look great. No idea if it was cables or not, but reasonable people can doubt the veracity of the theatrics.

Aarostotle 2 hours ago

A dancer dressed in a robot costume was not being played off as a robot, and is not evidence of cables, nor is it evidence of a tendency to fake demos.

It’s strange that people need to convince themselves that this is fake.

proggy an hour ago

I see nothing strange about questioning the reality presented in a highly controlled on stage demonstration of a literal rocket car.

wombat-man an hour ago

I think it was a real demo, but I share in the skepticism that this is something that could reach the market. How big is this cold gas container? What happens to it when it gets in an accident? If the car has dirt and debris under it, what is the risk to people/property around it when the trusters turn on?

10 years from their initial offering of the roadster, I'd like to see them release a well functioning, cool looking car. Why are they spending time/energy trying to make it fly?

rimeice 36 minutes ago

Dangle the shiney thing to get everyone’s attention and sell the hell out of the very normal thing. This is basic startup marketing and say what you want about Elon, but he owns this skill, it’s why he’s the worlds richest person.

Negitivefrags 18 minutes ago

All that info is out there. The one that thrusts backwards is 200 litres at 10,000 PSI and takes up all your boot space.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/691843612950003743/15...

The one that thrusts downwards removes the front passenger seat for another 400 litre tank. I don't think there are any pictures of that though.

I personally would find it scary sitting next to a huge 10,000 PSI pressure vessel but there you go.

They will not attempt to make it legal to use on normal roads, but intend to try and certify it to be in a road legal car but only usable while not on the road.

It also takes like 6 hours to fill and can be used one time per fill for a single use. It's a party trick for sure.

wombat-man 12 minutes ago

yeah... I want to see the crash test videos. If someone is driving around with this in their trunk I'm staying away.

rogerrogerr an hour ago

What cable arrangement would you propose to move a car in that way? I think it would be easier to do with gas thrusters than with cables. They'd get tangled in each other.

bittercynic 7 minutes ago

I don't pretend to know the details of the show, but if it was actually doing what's implied I don't think the lighting would have been set up to hide so much.

okdood64 an hour ago

The audience wasn't that close.

frmersdog 7 minutes ago

To be fair: it wasn't really flying, it was more "falling with style."

tumdum_ an hour ago

https://mcmurtry.com/upside-down-driving/

m3rc an hour ago

That is very clearly not what is happening

javascriptfan69 22 minutes ago

You're right. The McMurty is an actual car with a driver in it.

dgunay 16 minutes ago

I feel like a curmudgeon because like yes the demo was really cool, but more from the standpoint that they were willing to do a stunt like that in an industry that is incredibly boring (at least in the US). The engineering behind making a relatively heavy object fly around with thrusters is very well understood at this point, I wouldn't call it "incredible" to rig RCS thrusters on a brick and make it do a barrel roll.

johnnyApplePRNG 8 minutes ago

This entire release just reeks of desperation from musk.

rich_sasha 12 hours ago

The maths of the flying is a little puzzling to me.

Back of the fag pack, let’s say it is light for an electric car and weights 1000kg. I’ll also go on a limb and guess the air flow is actually subsonic - 200m/s would make it 0.6 Ma (still insanely fast!). Even then, that requires 50 kg of air every second. Or 40 m^3. Using everyone’s favorite metric, this empties an Olympic swimming pool in 1 minute. It also requires a MW of power. I mean… that’s a lot??? Though admittedly, only about as much as accelerating 0-60 in 1 sec (50% of that in fact). So the flying would draw as much power as accelerating at full throttle.

Power requirements would go down a lot with slower exhaust speed, but then you need to shift more fluid. 40 m^3 already seems like a lot to me.

I get it’s a neat little demo and they have to get SpaceX into the picture somehow, but still I don’t understand how it’s supposed to add up. Also, what do I know - just a humble physicist.

preommr 10 hours ago

> Back of the fag pack,

napkins, and envelopes at least kind of make sense.

Who was ever writing on the back of cigarette packs?

eszed 9 hours ago

> Who was ever writing on the back of cigarette packs?

British officers planning trench raids in the front lines during WWI. Or, at least, that's where I've been told the expression originates.

Really, though, is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down? It's a colloquialism. It doesn't even have to be taken literally to make sense. What is gained by questioning it on that level?

triceratops 7 hours ago

> is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down?

Wouldn't the back have printing on it? I could imagine someone ripping the pack open and writing on the insides, which are blank.

dmtroyer 6 hours ago

I don't know what cigarette packaging looked like at the time, but can imagine they were possibly government provided in a very simple paper package.

astrolx 4 hours ago

In quite a few countries they were rather blank, not like today!

SenHeng 7 hours ago

Bike shedding.

atuladhar 4 hours ago

> Really, though, is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down? It's a colloquialism. It doesn't even have to be taken literally to make sense. What is gained by questioning it on that level?

I took the OP's question to really be a question about the origin of that phrase, and with your answer, I learned something I didn't know before. So I, for one, am happy the question was asked.

mediaman 3 hours ago

I'm glad it was asked too and enjoyed the answer.

The OP's question was clearly skeptical though:

---

napkins, and envelopes at least kind of make sense.

Who was ever writing on the back of cigarette packs?

---

Implication being that writing on the back of cig packs does not make sense. I'd agree with your reading if not for the "at least kind of make sense" bit.

m3rc 43 minutes ago

cigarette packs have not been blank on the back since the commenter has been alive

triceratops 7 hours ago

Smokers who didn't have napkins or envelopes handy, presumably.

suriyaG 6 hours ago

this is funny because I know so many people who always note down phone numbers and such for the day on cigarette packs. sometimes even carrying a few with them all the time.

in india.

vessenes 9 hours ago

In the video they claim the air is supersonic at exit, and point out the mach diamonds -- and I think they said 60 kilonewtons of thrust max, which is really a lot. So I think the volume of air would decrease roughly 60% from your estimate? I'm not a physicist.

I'm imagining this in two phases: phase one - you drive around, and excess energy goes to compressing air. Phase two - you use that compressed air which takes very little additional power, so you get to double up on force. I guess likely a 'running mode' where it's using some power to keep suction on.

I'm curious how much time you get at full blast vs 'just' enough to keep the car pinned to a wall, e.g. 1 vs 2 g.

Ajedi32 6 hours ago

The "pin to a wall" part uses fans, not the cold gas thrusters. It can probably stay there until the battery runs out. The gas thrusters are only needed if you want to go 0-60 in .8s (with the Thrust version), or if you want to fly (with the Rocket version). Probably those only last a few seconds before the air tanks need to recharge.

rich_sasha 5 hours ago

So let’s double the speed - 1.2 Ma. You need half the mass now - 25kg/sec. If you want to have 10 seconds worth of hover - that’s 250kg of gas. Plus the weight of the storage tank. Plus - this is the amounts for hover. Not for any extra force on top of that.

It still doesn’t make much sense to me. And that’s before considering what happens when you get rocket stream hitting a tarmac road. Never mind public roads, this sounds like a major hazard anywhere. Plus the quantity of compressed gas son board (if that’s how it works)… not a pretty crash. At these numbers, imagine 10MJ released all of a sudden - apparently that’s about 2.5kg of TNT.

Surely I’m missing something… as I say, I can’t make sense of it.

sobellian 4 hours ago

Your math is pretty good, Tesla actually gave the storage tank capacity as 250kg

ETA: this is a horrifying amount of energy to be sitting on top of.

vessenes 2 hours ago

I guess on the plus side SpaceX has been trucking much worse around in and out of orbit verrry reliably for years now in tough conditions.

teiferer an hour ago

1% failure rate for space rockets might count as very reliable, but if 1% of all cars explode then we are in for a ride.

lp92 2 hours ago

Can't wait to see the crash test video.

phillmv 4 hours ago

what's there to miss? if these ever make it to market their only purpose will be conspicuous consumption for vice-signalling ding dongs

bell-cot 4 hours ago

> phase one - you drive around, and excess energy goes to compressing air.

It's an electric car - unless you've got an incredibly long charging cable, there is no "excess energy" when you're driving around.

jameshart 2 hours ago

Mach diamonds in a compressed air jet aren’t surprising. You can get them from a canned compressed air duster: https://hackaday.com/2024/02/18/canned-air-is-unexpectedly-s...

nialv7 5 hours ago

It _does_ go supersonic, otherwise the converging-diverging nozzle doesn't make sense.

Betelbuddy 3 hours ago

You have the answer in your calculations, you just need to take to its logical conclusion. I say its was balsa not cartoon...

RetardedBastard 26 minutes ago

Back of the what ? Shame on you

nunez 5 hours ago

I definitely have my issues with Tesla and Elon but this was one of the coolest demos I have ever seen in my life. The engineering needed to do this must have been unbelievable.

BigTTYGothGF 4 hours ago

[flagged]

tgtweak 4 hours ago

Hagerty has a very good walkthrough video with Lars and it looks pretty real. The thing they failed to mention was that the "flying" version is separate and the entire passenger seat is replaced with a pressure tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rvpUecLts

nrmitchi 4 hours ago

> and the entire passenger seat is replaced with a pressure tank.

That sounds extremely explosive and not something any random person should be irresponsibly driving around.

stronglikedan 4 hours ago

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you probably pass at least one very explosive tank of something very volatile each and every day on your commute.

detritus 3 hours ago

Perhaps, but not at quite this level of pressure.

This thing is literally a fucking bomb if it fails, through accident or degradation.

The down-force negative pressure aspect they gleaned from McMurtry though? Really cool. Genuinely useful. I just hope they don't claim it as their own invention.

Which they will, because Musk is all ego.

__xor_eax_eax 4 hours ago

How is that different than having my wife there?

yonatan8070 3 hours ago

If you go on the website that version is listed as "Invite only"

ReptileMan 3 hours ago

Where I live aftermarket modified LPG cars are extremely common. We don't have explosions often.

ceejayoz 3 hours ago

https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-roadster-thrust-system...

> You can think of the COPV like the fuel tank in a compressed natural gas (CNG)- or liquid propane gas (LPG)-powered vehicle, except the nitrogen mixture in the COPV is stored at a much higher pressure, up to 10,000 psi, similar to the pressures in modern hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

LPG cars have somewhere between 100 and 300 psi.

xattt 3 hours ago

How do gas pressures in the COPV in the Roadster compare to pressures in lost rockets?

ceejayoz 2 hours ago

I'm not able to find solid numbers on that, but given the shared heritage (I presume those gas thrusters come straight from SpaceX) and premium in a space vehicle for payload space, and the fact that SpaceX lost four vehicles to the things, I suspect similarly quite high.

dotancohen 3 hours ago

LPG explosions are real combustion due to tank rupture (often due to installation damage or rust). A nitrogen COPV can not rupture (that's why the CO in COPV is there) but it can leak. And that COPV, when it leaks, will be a rocket. But not an explosion.

10,000 PSI? That is beyond absurd. I can not imagine what alloy and how wrapped that pressure vessel is... Or what type of crazy pump is recharging it!

ceejayoz 2 hours ago

> A nitrogen COPV can not rupture (that's why the CO in COPV is there) but it can leak.

They'll happily burst (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ-__PlU4gM) and blow up your vehicle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71AwkBt3_ts).

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...

"'Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing,' the company wrote in an update on Thursday (June 19)."

> LPG explosions are real combustion due to tank rupture…

They're mostly designed to vent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupture_disc) to prevent a BLEVE. Big fire, big mess, but without oxidizer in the tank and much lower pressures, relatively safe by comparison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQDyNjCNxVY

ReptileMan an hour ago

And the P in LPG stands for Probably not flammable.

lifestyleguru 3 hours ago

Tank pressures are of different magnitudes. With LPG it's only for storage, here it's for thrust.

gyanchawdhary 3 hours ago

Big Elon fan boy here but you are 100% right. It’s basically the “Titan” submersible in reverse.

stymaar 3 hours ago

May he drive this toy everyday and face the same fate.

gyanchawdhary 2 hours ago

I know you are a kind person irl and don’t really wish that!

throooooo 3 hours ago

Why would you call yourself a fanboy? I can't get past his meddling in governments worldwide and clear self-seving in DOGE.

gyanchawdhary 2 hours ago

Purely because the tech he (or the companies he funds) build is otherworldly ..

ceejayoz 3 hours ago

Yup. SpaceX lost four spacecraft to issues with these.

CRS-7, Amos-6, Starship 36, and Super Heavy 18.

beloch 3 hours ago

You can make a brick fly if you strap enough thrust ($$$$) to it. That doesn't mean a human without suicidal thoughts would ever want to be strapped to the same brick.

This is hot wheels. It's pretty clear Musk finally had enough of the culture wars at X and decided to go interfere with Tesla some more. Instead of producing a car people might actually want, he made them do this. This is the worst waste of a company you're likely to see in your life.

TSLA is probably not a good stock to be holding right now.

LogicFailsMe 3 hours ago

Not at a PE of ~336 in a world where BYD will eventually arrive in the US.

But TBF if they offered the SpaceX thrusters as an option, the SF effective altruists would slurp them right up to be their daily drivers even if they have to be strapped in next to a tank of toxic boom boom to use them. And Sam Altman would cry into his protein-supplemented energy drink because his Koenigsegg doesn't have them and I'd happily hand over 50 Quatloos to watch that.

phoghed 3 hours ago

> Instead of producing a car people might actually want, he made them do this.

Looks like the base version would be the one for that.

beloch 2 hours ago

There are a few problems with this approach.

1. The kind of person who buys a sports-car often doesn't want the "base version". They want luxury. They want status. They don't want to face the choice of being upsold to an impractical deathtrap or driving around in the "base version" like someone who could barely just afford it.

2. This demo does absolutely nothing to demonstrate the abilities of the base version. I reiterate, a brick could have been made to fly in this way. The base version will no doubt have good paper stats because Musk understands that numbers must be big, but that doesn't mean the base model will be pleasant to drive.

3. The styling of this car is "wankpanzer with a few extra polygons". Given how well the wankpanzer sold, demand for this thing, even if the base model is a competent auto, will be limp.

4. Musk is currently trying to buy another election. With Musk visibly taking an interest in Tesla again, that's likely to backfire on Tesla. They need to cut ties with Musk, not keep doing the sort of puerile things he's known and frequently lambasted for.

nomel 2 hours ago

You should look into hydrogen fuel tanks found in Toyotas! Much more terrifying.

jmorenoamor 3 hours ago

I think it's not that difficult when you have full access to SpaceX know how and infrastructure.

My only issue with it is that beyond being impressive and very cool, it's pretty useless.

andsoitis 3 hours ago

> I think it's not that difficult

First you have to build SpaceX.

jmorenoamor 2 hours ago

Of course, that's why I start from the premise of owning both Tesla and SpaceX.

jelloroll42 3 hours ago

Still frames showing the underside appear to show that it is basically hollow, so fake.

Making a car with a heavy EV battery and powertrain fly like that is probably not something they're able to do.

biker142541 3 hours ago

Maybe, but why? Feels like a slap in the face to people who have been waiting ten years for the car. Gimmicky demos just scream waste of money and loss of focus on what matters.

darknavi 3 hours ago

Not a lot of tears to shed for folks waiting a long time for a $250k (starting, at least at the time) toy.

I'd bet most of them see this as a cooler, shinier toy.

prolly97 2 hours ago

DHH: >I put $50,000 on this thing 18 months ago. Not knowing it was going to fucking fly! When it was already years "late". Because investing in whatever Elon does next is not just a great bet, but the most inspiring and fun one too.

https://x.com/dhh/status/2110983188910923926?s=20

Why the second hand outrage. If you didn't buy a car and feel bad about the wait time, just enjoy the demo! :D

Rebelgecko 2 hours ago

Birds of a feather I see

eastbound 2 hours ago

A lot of this sentiment is based on jealousy or competiton with Musk, or the pleasure of harassment towards Asperger people: Gimmicky demos are what people remember.

Everyone here can probably still remember the time to the minute that Steve Jobs in 2007 said "an internet communicator, a music player, a phone" and the 3-faced cube transformed into a single device. That's what gimmicky demos are for.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago

> A lot of this sentiment is based on jealousy or competiton with Musk

Maybe. Another possibility is a feeling of opposition to the idea that the world's richest person continue to accumulate wealth, while using said wealth to dishonestly manipulate elections, support openly fascist and bigoted political parties, and, most recently, tip the scales of international conflict (by limiting Starlink use by Ukraine).

You might love his products, but Elon Musk should not have more power. That's a statement not based in envy, but in a revulsion for what he spends that money on, and how it impacts innocent people.

LeBit 2 hours ago

Careful. You will be flagged.

hackyhacky an hour ago

Getting downvoted by Musk fanboys is a badge of honor

user43928 an hour ago

Out of curiosity, I checked how Musk's wealth of $1.02T is allocated.

  75.7% SpaceX
  15.1% Tesla
  1.3% The Boring Company
  7.6% Other

His political donations for the 2025-26 cycle are apparently $366M.

hackyhacky 2 hours ago

> or the pleasure of harassment towards Asperger people

I expect that motivates exactly zero percent of the criticism that Musk gets.

throwawaysoxjje 2 hours ago

Yeah, and it showed up in 2007.

Sent from my iPhone

sgerenser 2 hours ago

The thing that Steve Jobs was demoing actually released just 6 months later. I'd be very surprised if anything close to what was demoed here is released even 6 years later.

mcast 2 hours ago

You could make the same argument for hypercars like the McLaren W1, why do you need 1,258 bhp and sub 3s 0-60 times? Seems gimmicky and not practical for the road. But to that I'd argue, why not?

upmind 2 hours ago

I don't think they're saying its bad, rather, the previous roadster has been in the works for 10 years and still hasn't been manufactured due to issues. Considering that how are they going to manufacture this by 2028? feels unlikely unless LLMs can help them here

blini-kot 2 hours ago

the difference here being that hypercars actually exist in the real world

ToucanLoucan 2 hours ago

Not sure why you're being downed. The Corvette E-Ray was one of the most impressive cars I've ever seen from design and styling to it's incredible performance, at a price point well below many cars it could stand toe-to-toe with. A big part of that impressiveness is that I can open Chevrolet's website right now, and find one to actually buy.

The demos for the future tech are fun for sure, but the Cybertruck and Tesla Semi started this exact same way. The Cybertruck arrived incredibly late, wildly missing even conservative estimates of it's capabilities, and at damn near double the price they teased, AND the units that have shipped have been a fucking mess, to such a degree where Tesla seemingly can't even give them away. And the Tesla Semi has still failed to materialize at all.

So yeah it's a bit of a joke to me to have them hocking a flying car, when their pickup truck can't even drive up a steep unpaved hill, that even my old clapped out F-150 on it's SUV tires would manage just fine.

Edit: and to clarify, I know that it can do that, because I helped a friend move some exercise equipment he bought at auction back to his house, and he has an open-back basement. We backed my truck with trailer down the hill, unloaded it through his basement patio door, and the truck then had to climb back up to the road. And I was a little nervous to be honest, but it did do that, despite as I said having SUV tires on 22-inch rims LOL

drop_star 2 hours ago

Those are cars you can drive. This is not.

thallium205 2 hours ago

Well yeah you have to fly this car.

mig1 2 hours ago

Have you seen it fly? Hovering for a is not flying

rout39574 2 hours ago

OK, it was falling with style. :)

hvb2 an hour ago

> Seems gimmicky and not practical for the road

By that logic any performance car is useless. There are, albeit few, people that do track these cars.

biker142541 27 minutes ago

Tracks exist and people can drive there, even if not common. I’m not aware of any real world scenarios you could jump a car like this, except I guess if you have the money to hire a stunt crew on your own massive property. That’s still very different than having an unreasonably fast car you can bring to a track. The closest I can think of are the prototype flying cars… also not practical, but generally intend to be able to take off and land and perform some function. A driving bomb that can perform controlled stunts is in a different class.

biker142541 41 minutes ago

One difference being that those in some way relate to performance of a vehicle and engineering ability to achieve it in a package which can be used for its intended purpose. This is just a vehicle with massive tanks strapped in and and obviously non production (not even remotely on path to production) package to make it achieve what has been proven since the 1970s as feasible for stunts.

sydd 2 hours ago

The people who are waiting for this car are waiting for a gimmick anyway. If you want a car that will take you from A to B reliably, you can buy one today.

most of the things a Tesla Roadster is advertised with is not street legal.

biker142541 24 minutes ago

Some, sure. The one person I know who reserved this owned the original roadster, believed in Tesla (quite wealthy by putting money where his mouth was in stock), and genuinely trying to advance the EV industry. He was so annoyed at this, and generally the last half decade of Tesla.

jmspring 2 hours ago

If you look at Tesla pricing and delivery, prices usually well above what was originally talked about - capability/etc a whole different thing with the cyber truck. The 3 engine "cyberbeast" was originally pushed at about 1/2 it's price 8ish years ago.

ignoramous 2 hours ago

Elon doesn't miss with his social media marketing. Compare the announcement tweets from Andy Jassy and the engagement they generate. Meta, with the Muse app (personal AI), is also leaning heavily on social media, but by paying influencers (instead of cool & viral product demos).

chairmansteve 12 minutes ago

"Elon doesn't miss with his social media marketing".

He just misses with his products these days: Cyber Truck, Robotaxi, Grok...

theteapot 2 hours ago

There's 3 trim levels. Flying is the top tier. They already publicly announced that.

bobmcnamara an hour ago

Still waiting for high speed rail

mikeweiss an hour ago

That's exactly how I see it too. Not a tesla shareholder but if I was I'd be running for the hills.

buzzerbetrayed an hour ago

Well, given that you’re not a Tesla shareholder, you likely give poor financial advice anyway. How long have people been trying to short Tesla? A decade at least?

palata 10 minutes ago

> How long have people been trying to short Tesla? A decade at least?

Still hoping.

thordenmark an hour ago

Gimmicky? Within our lifetime it will be a common safety feature like airbags. Can you imagine how many terrible accidents can be avoided if the car can fly out of a bad situation? Doesn't need to fly long distance. Engage your imagination and you'll think of many use cases.

rideontime an hour ago

No, it will not.

deanputney an hour ago

Fly out of a bad situation and straight into another one.

berdario an hour ago

Flying/jumping doesn't instantly kill momentum.

Could it theoretically help to avoid *some* crashes? Yes

But in most cases, it'll just trade a frontal crash for a crash against obstacles off/above the road... Which is way more dangerous for pedestrians, buildings, etc.

Driver assistance can in some cases brake before an obstacles. But we've also seen Teslas drive into obstacles. Regardless if it's going to be driver assistance or a human with too much confidence in their ability to avoid obstacles... I wouldn't want to be near a Roadster leaping off the asphalt

__m 33 minutes ago

It can also create terrible accidents by blowing up in a collision

wombat-man an hour ago

yeah if I had a preorder for a roadster, I'd be wondering about how much time they're spending on this compressed air thing.

spyckie2 2 hours ago

How much does the car actually weigh? It feels more sleight of hand than actually a flying car.

thefourthchime 2 hours ago

About 3800 pounds. (from Hargety interview)

IshKebab 2 hours ago

I would put good money on the flying demo one being a custom lightweight version.

illwrks 2 hours ago

Honestly, I think what is shown is sleight of hand, it was probably a step up from this DIY project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MybApXQIO5Q

smrtinsert 2 hours ago

And that is precisely all it is, a demo. Reminder that BYDs are held at bay in an anti free market policy specifically because American car companies cannot compete with its low cost and quality. We're wasting time and money on this type of tech.

This engineering in this demo was only designed o get lucrative government contracts.

Robdel12 2 hours ago

Movie special effects has been doing this forever, lol

HarHarVeryFunny 2 hours ago

Someone else commented that this tech might make for a good Bond movie car (maybe better suited to the Roger Moore cheesy era), but I assume nowadays they'd just use AI since it'd be so much cheaper.

HarHarVeryFunny 2 hours ago

I wouldn't exactly call it a demo.. more of a marketing stunt, albeit a very impressive one from an engineering POV.

I wonder what the point of this was? Seems likely related to anticipated purchase of Tesla by SpaceX. Maybe meant to (irrationally) justify a high offer price for Tesla?

Can't say I'm a fan of the styling of the car - I guess it'd look at home parked beside a Cybertruck, but something like the Porsche Mission S is way sexier.

seizethecheese 2 hours ago

Distinguishing “demo” from “marketing stunt” here feels like a distinction without a difference and smells like motivated reasoning.

nomel 2 hours ago

> wonder what the point of this was?

Car manufacturers have been doing pointless things for over a century [1], with no plan to even try to make them available to the public. Why is this getting so much heat?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_car

downrightmike 2 hours ago

We've had rocket powered drone for 30 years https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NL1UF2bvaEM this is just a larger version

kimixa 28 minutes ago

And those rocket drones have a significant proportion of their mass as reaction gas for the thrusters, everything else being designed around lightness, and can still only resist gravity on the order of a few tens of seconds before a full recharge needs to be done. They're very much designed for "small" course corrections outside of atmosphere, or quickly dodging the terminal phase of an interceptor, rather than efficient velocity change.

There's no getting away from the rocket equation - reaction mass is heavy. The sheer number of design compromises that need to be made to allow a cold gas thruster system means I can't see anything but ending up with an awful car for the sake of a few seconds "air time". And the rest of the time you'll still be (at least) doubling the mass of your car from the propellant plus whatever the thrusters, tanks, linkages and everything else weights. I guess you could leave it empty, then only charge it for the "Party Trick", but it still seems a lot of compromises for the occasional "Hey, this looks cool".

And then really only usable in a nice empty, flat, controlled environment - the "real world" driving experience has things like other cars, people, buildings and street surfaces that likly wouldn't appreciate what are effectively localised hurricane-force level winds from the car next to them.

This is a car rigged for a specific stunt. And there's a reason why people don't just drive around rigged stunt cars. They suck as being "cars".

WalterBright an hour ago

> I definitely have my issues with Tesla and Elon but...

Sad that people feel the need to add this qualification. I see it regularly.

nomorewords an hour ago

No it's not sad, the man was basically an unelected official, laid off thousands of government workers and the second order effects of that will affect millions. All while he also toys with Ukraine and lives are lost so that he appeases an autocrat?

scns an hour ago

> laid off thousands of government workers

Preferably those tasked regulating his companies.

system2 an hour ago

If they fired 90% of the government employees, nobody would feel the difference. Most people are just paper pushers and part of the nonsense system. He wanted to manage it like a company, and what any CEO would do when they just start working: trim the fat.

palata 13 minutes ago

I hope you get fired, too.

JustinAiken 6 minutes ago

100% of the people I know that got DOGE’d were amazing people drastically underpaid for their efforts already…

3 or 4 data points isn’t a whole lot more than an anecdote, but it’s still more data than baseless claims line you’re throwing around here

WalterBright an hour ago

> the man was basically an unelected official

Only the President and Congress were elected. The rest are all appointed.

> laid off thousands of government workers

He did at the direction of the President, who was elected. Government service is not a jobs program.

> the second order effects of that will affect millions

speculation

> All while he also toys with Ukraine and lives are lost so that he appeases an autocrat?

Decisions about Ukraine go through Trump. Musk is in a delicate position - it is illegal for him, as a private businessman, to be a combatant, but he seems thrust into that position.

RetardedBastard 30 minutes ago

I must defend the pdf billionaire

stbtrax 27 minutes ago

White knighting for a delusional trillionaire. Bizzare

horsawlarway 10 minutes ago

Yeah, and even with all the qualifications here, the man is still an absolute asshole.

All you need to do is see how frequently he posts on Twitter to know he's broken and trying to fill the hole with money and attention.

bobsomers an hour ago

Why is it sad? Over 700,000 avoidable deaths from Elon's dismantling of US AID alone, two thirds of them children. Estimated to be 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030.

I think the qualification is unbelievably tame considering what Elon deserves.

WalterBright 38 minutes ago

> Over 700,000 avoidable deaths from Elon's dismantling of US AID alone

google: did congress restore food aid funding?

silentsea90 11 minutes ago

Since you care so much, you must be donating a ton of money to save lives?

matteoraso 24 minutes ago

He's a neo-nazi that killed millions with his illegal USAID cuts. That qualification is the bare minimum.

moffkalast 18 minutes ago

Well unfortunately he's made it necessary to do so. I can like this demo in the same way I can like the V2 rocket as a pioneering achievement in rocketry. There's a very big elephant in the room.

Quarrelsome 11 minutes ago

its cos he's a prick. The way he pretended to "fairly" sack devs at twitter when he was clearly just trying to cut costs. That he bought twitter to "defend free speech" and then started donating to the Republication party and promoting a very specific political position online. As a euro the Nazi salute alone is enough for me.

The qualifier matters, that guy has serious issues.

extraextra 11 minutes ago

So many Elon haters around here

People should find a better hobby

sshconnection 4 minutes ago

If I had paid for a reservation for this car in checks notes 2017(!!!), I'd have some issues with them as well. Very cool tech demo, but come find me when it's getting produced and sold to the people who reserved them a decade ago.

teiferer an hour ago

Is there any evidence/footage that this actually happened in front of a live audience? And not just on a screen that was shown to a live audience? Cause that's all can find.

Sorry for being skeptical but Elons track record of being honest at such demos isn't stellar.

Edit: To the downvoters, this is a serious question. I'd really love to see such evidence.

bobsomers an hour ago

Quite interesting how things can be seen so differently, because this was one of the most pointless/dumbest demos I have ever seen in my life. There was no doubt someone could build something like this, the question is always "why"? What problem does this solve?

Sorry, but in world where the vast majority of people can't afford groceries, gas, housing, or healthcare... I just can't look at these silly things the billionaires are spending their money on and get even remotely excited about it. It's just so absolutely tone deaf in the moment we're in right now.

CommieBobDole 9 hours ago

So this is a really neat technical demo, using spacecraft cold-gas thrusters and guidance hardware/software to do crazy stunt stuff in a car, but what's the relevance to an actual product that can be sold, even as a small-volume exotic? These are pressurized gas thrusters, so either the tanks, valves, and piping take up most of the interior of the car, or it has a low-single-digit number of seconds of thrust before recharge, probably both. Also the tanks for these things tend to use incredibly high pressures and are apt to explode spectacularly in any sort of accident.

This is sort of like demonstrating a car that softens the asphalt in front of it with lasers to get a better grip; difficult, technically impressive, and zero chance that it will ever be allowed on a public road.

Edit: According to this Motor Trend article, it uses a big carbon-fiber pressure vessel at 5500psi, so basically an enormous fragile bomb. And the one that did all the stunts had two of the pressure vessels which would have filled most of the interior.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-roadster-thrust-system...

jameskilton 9 hours ago

Well, yeah. The full thruster version only seats one, and is invite only for purchase, and is not street legal.

andor 9 hours ago

I'm wondering if it could even be sold to individuals given that the thrusters probably count as restricted military technology?

rtkwe 2 hours ago

It's unclear what they'll be classified as and probably comes down to some negotiation and lawyering to decide how restricted they are. You can sell a lot of restricted hardware to US citizens that you can't sell internationally due to ITAR.

KetoManx64 4 hours ago

*Not street legal in 48/50 states

m463 8 hours ago

> a big carbon-fiber pressure vessel at 5500psi

Other cars have these tanks, but full of flammable fuel, not just air.

Off the top of my head, the honda civic CNG (3600 psi)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Civic_GX#Specifications

the toyota marai (10,000 psi hydrogen)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai#High-pressure_hyd...

and probably the other cng or hydrogen cars.

bamboozled 8 hours ago

I thought carbon fiber wasn't good with pressure, hence OceanGate Titan implosion

xnx 7 hours ago

Different forces: expansive (Roadster) vs compressive (OceanGate). This makes some logical sense since fibers/strands/ropes are good for tensile strength vs. compressive forces.

benji-york 4 hours ago

I guess this is the ultimate version of "you can't push a rope".

TiredOfLife 6 hours ago

Professor Farnsworth: "Dear Lord! That's over 150 atmospheres of pressure!"

Fry: "How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?"

Professor Farnsworth: "Well, it's a space ship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one."

cdot2 2 hours ago

SpaceX has been using carbon fiber pressure tanks for awhile. Rocket Labs has been using them too.

rtkwe 2 hours ago

CF can make a fine pressure vessel it's just difficult to build and they require constant inspection that OceanGate didn't perform (and ignored evidence from their own monitoring system that the PV was responding differently to pressure after a hard bang it suffered when docking in one of the last few dives). SpaceX already has experience building the COPVs that Tesla is probably using and knows their limits pretty well though I don't want to be standing near one in a major crash either.

chr 2 hours ago

Some off piste skiers carry a carbon fiber canister with pressurized nitrogen gas, to inflate airbags from backpack in case of an avalanche. Carbon fiber is not that good with point pressure, but strong for evenly distributed loads.

At this point I look at wikipedia what happened to the submarine bamboozled mentioned. Ooops. Heh, the pressure of water is as evenly distributed as can be. Seems my background in watersports is not enough to moonlight in material engineering.

LooseMarmoset 17 minutes ago

oceangate isn't a good comparison.

carbon fiber is great in tension, i.e. a compressed air tank, or COPV

carbon fiber is much less great in compression, i.e. OceanGate

Also the OceanGate construction process was bad, even for carbon fiber, because the CEO didn't listen to actual engineers.

Zarathustra30 an hour ago

It looks like those tanks are 5-8kg? The Tesla's is apparently 250kg.

jttnr 7 hours ago

You an actually see what the pressure vessel looks like in the recent Top Gear episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdkIOhFmbKI&t=1239

Doesn't look too big, tbh. They also explain some of the mechanics used to make it happen.

amai 4 hours ago

This video states that it takes 2–6 hours to charge the compressed air for the cold-gas thrusters. And then you can use it exactly once before you have to recharge it. The journalist calls it “beautifully pointless.”

https://youtu.be/JdkIOhFmbKI

mahboi 3 hours ago

That sounds fine. Charging time isn't the problem though.

consumer451 3 hours ago

The stock market agrees. TSLA continues trending downward.

Also, the stock market's id, aka WSB is not impressed in hilarious and sometimes insightful ways. [0]

From my nerd POV, this looks super cool! From any other POV, ummm, what are we supposed to do with this? This is neat as heck, but you cannot put COPVs on public roadways.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1x73hxs/tes...

mvkel 3 hours ago

I mean, this is something we want to encourage. Everyone always likes to quote fiduciary duty ad nauseum. Here is a public company flying (lol) in the face of that in the spirit of, well, fun.

consumer451 3 hours ago

But, this version of the Roadster is just a concept car with many extra steps, isn't it?

What happens when a charged COPV is involved in a car accident?

What is the point of reaction thrusters that turn anyone on the wrong side of the car into pink mist?

Will anyone ever be allowed to drive this on a public roadway?

IsTom 2 hours ago

> Will anyone ever be allowed to drive this on a public roadway?

I can see this being a thing in a cyberpunk dystopia, so.. in a few years I guess?

randyrand an hour ago

Propane powered cars were (are) on public roads, for better or worse.

moffkalast 8 minutes ago

That's some clean powered cars I tell ya hwat

hn_throwaway_99 3 hours ago

We're not just talking about "fiduciary duty". Some people put down large (250k) down payments for the Roadster when it was announced 9 years ago. If I were one of those folks I'd be more interested in getting an actual car I could drive than seeing a cool demo.

tripleee 3 hours ago

> TSLA continues trending downward

uh.. zoom out a bit? The stock price is double what it was two years ago

consumer451 3 hours ago

I suppose I should have written "continues recent downward trend." One would hope that a huge marketing investment like this would help hype the stock, no?

tripleee 2 hours ago

You're arguing that correlation = causation

There are 1000 variables that go into it

rtkwe 2 hours ago

But you'd expect if this were being treated as a likely success for Tesla the announcement would have caused a price bump or at least a reversal of the trend.

Also 2 years ago is a pretty specific time point where it was near the lowest it's been looking back a less random 5d, 1M, 6M, 1Y and 5Y it's only up on the 5Y chart and that's a relatively meager 25%.

Pedro_Ribeiro 2 hours ago

Dude it's a supercar that like 1000 people can buy, this thing is a rounding error. Lamborghini's revenue was $3B last year, Tesla's was $94B. Supercars are barely a market.

You'll see the stock go up when Robotaxi and the Semi hit the market.

rtkwe 2 hours ago

Not the base model, the base was supposed to be more generally available for regular rich people not just hypercar people.

nkozyra an hour ago

> You'll see the stock go up when Robotaxi and the Semi hit the market

Robotaxi is trying to enter an already crowded market and isn't exactly flourishing there. I'm still seeing every one in Austin with a human behind a steering wheel.

As for the Semi, yeah, if it actually comes to fruition. But like all things Elon ... let's wait and see.

iknowstuff 6 minutes ago

https://robotaxitracker.com/cameras?metric=vehicles&kind=cyb...

they have about as many unsupervised robotaxis on the road as there are waymos in austin, as spotted by an AI watching public camera feeds

tallanvor 3 hours ago

Not trending down anywhere near enough. Their PE Ratio is absurd, but it definitely proves the adage that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

And as a nerd, while it's a cool demo in a controlled environment, cars like that are the last thing I want on the road near me as a driver, passenger, or pedestrian!

andix 2 hours ago

I'm not sure if the stock price means a lot. Tesla is kind of a meme stock, people buy it based on vibes, not based on what it's worth.

But this technology is as useless as a toothbrush with a rocket engine. Some rich car crazy guys will buy it, sure. But maybe a few thousand units. This technology doesn't bring any substantial revenue for a billion dollar company. People who own this rocket car it will try it out once or twice and then it will end up in some pretty garage for a few decades.

nomel 2 hours ago

> people buy it based on vibes, not based on what it's worth.

There's a little secret you should know about the value of all stocks...

randyrand an hour ago

All fancy sports cars are useless. Like really. To race them? What’s the point?

gargalatas 2 hours ago

It's just a supercar. Supercars are allowed to be pointless.

420official 2 hours ago

This isn't the car though, this is a concept demo to keep people subscribed while they continue to delay the real car. I agree supercars are pointless in a lot of ways, but this is just not the same thing because it's vaporware meant to be provocative.

OxO4 2 hours ago

The funny thing is that during the event, Elon claimed that the car can recharge the tanks itself [0], but in the Top Gear video, the Tesla folks say that it is recharged from an external source [1]. In the Top Gear video, they also say that they are filling it from a "high pressure nitrogen system", whereas Elon claims that the tank is filled with air. They can't even keep their own messaging straight.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/live/qt5p-_tE8d0?si=V5csPghK02wwd0or...

[1] https://youtu.be/JdkIOhFmbKI?si=ULvyIRWDRZRWlIWA&t=1340

londons_explore 2 hours ago

I assume it's both...

it has its own pump, but if you don't want to wait 6 hours to recharge, you can fill it with a nitrogen cylinder.

OxO4 an hour ago

The Top Gear video mentions that kind of recharge time using an external system (though they do claim that they are trying to get it down to 30min).

I've seen some claims that the gas is stored at a pressure of 10000 psi/690 bar in a 200 l tank. If that's true, then that is a gas volume of 138000 l. A commercial, stationary scuba compressor compresses around 850 l/min [0] to 350 bar. A compressor like that would take around 160 min just to compress 138000 l to 350 bar (so significantly less than 690 bar), is a _large_ appliance, and _loud_. Compressing gas quickly also produces heat. An on-board compressor seems quite unrealistic to me unless I'm missing something.

[0] https://www.bauer-kompressoren.de/en_en/pe-ve1

smotched 2 hours ago

promise everything now, work out everything else later.

IshKebab 2 hours ago

Air is basically nitrogen. It can probably use both.

OxO4 an hour ago

Based on a cursory search, propellant-grade nitrogen requires a high purity (99.99%) [0]. I am no aerospace engineer, but I'd be interested to know what the actual requirements are for a system like that to work reliably. If 99.99% nitrogen is actually required, then I'd assume that the corresponding compressor would neither be compact nor particularly maintenance-free.

[0] MIL-PRF-27401

nomel 2 hours ago

He's only 78% correct.

jakeydus 2 hours ago

It's pretty simple, actually, Elon is a pathological liar.

foobiekr an hour ago

Elon _always_ lies and exaggerates during these things. He seemingly can't stop himself.

lp92 2 hours ago

It's a typical Tesla/Elon marketing stunt and nothing more.

BurningFrog 19 minutes ago

The obvious use case is to avoid a collision!

Single use is perfectly fine for that purpose. No one complains that airbags are single use.

afavour 21 hours ago

Looks like a sensible turning down of the Cybertruck aesthetic into something that looks good.

That said, the production issues with the Cybertruck mean you’d be a fool to reserve one of these. Let others do it, find out how late it arrives, what glued panels fall off at speed and wait for the inevitable recalls. Tesla has torched their engineering reputation lately and this page is making a lot of promises about revolutionary things.

combobyte 21 hours ago

> glued panels fall off at speed

Given some of the tauted 'features' of this thing, I'd be more concerned about it blowing up in my driveway.

sippingabonedry 21 hours ago

Hardly a concern when you can't afford one.

gopalv 20 hours ago

> what glued panels fall off

The Lotus Elise was famously glued together instead of welds. The original Roadster also had the same innards.

This is clearly not a car for someone who wants to go from A to B, but a lot of Tesla components gets binned together for the next iteration of the cheaper car because they always order too many of them.

Oddly enough this makes their cheaper cars more reliable than the expensive ones (think about the Audis right when Ferdinand Piech took over Lamborgini).

majormajor 20 hours ago

> Oddly enough this makes their cheaper cars more reliable than the expensive ones

That's pretty standard. An M3 has long pushed the tolerances of things in the engine more than a base-model 3 series. An S-class has more whiz-bang-hope-it-still-works-in-ten-years stuff than a C-class. A Lexus has more going on than a boring base Corolla.

giva 10 hours ago

That is the norm in all "sporty" stuff. Expensive car/motorbikes/bicycles use light alloys that wear out much faster than heavier, cheaper materials

rozap 3 hours ago

Lotus did this on their chassis not because it was cheap, but because it allowed them to use lighter, thinner aluminum which would have been ruined by welding. It was almost certainly not cheaper than welding, they had to add little protrusions that kept all the pieces 0.2mm apart, which is what made for the best bonding. They went to a lot of trouble to make this process work, and it resulted in one of the best sports cars of all time in terms of pure driving experience.

Tesla has very different reasons for doing what they did on the cybertruck. It's very much a form over function. Lotus has always been function over form (to a fault, in terms of their financial position).

CarVac an hour ago

> kept all the pieces 0.2mm apart

You can add glass microspheres to adhesives to guarantee bondline thickness. It's often done nowadays whenever you have different metals meeting with a glue bond because it keeps them electrically isolated, preventing galvanic corrosion.

dghlsakjg 2 hours ago

Most cars have glued joints and body panels these days.

The issue isn't glue, its that parts are falling off.

rgbrenner 20 hours ago

at least the CyberTruck shipped.

9 years since the announcement of Roadster v2, people who paid 50k deposits are still waiting.

Time to up the promises, and ask for more $50k deposits for v3!

nradov 20 hours ago

This type of vehicle isn't intended to drive at speed, at least not very far. It's targeted at collectors who will park it in a garage with their other supercars. It's a status symbol with wheels, not transportation or even a toy for track days. (And I don't mean that as a criticism, there's nothing wrong with wealthy people buying collectibles.)

luqtas 20 hours ago

> (And I don't mean that as a criticism, there's nothing wrong with wealthy people buying collectibles.)

there's a whole lot of systemic issues with wealthy people buying low-poly cars to their collection.

m463 19 hours ago

Don't make fun of the Delorean. Or The Thing.

wallst07 11 hours ago

What systemic issues?

jayd16 6 hours ago

Issues like "should society allow an economic system that leads to such vast wealth inequality?"

alasdair_ 20 hours ago

It’s not premium enough for collectors. I could see plenty of tech people buying one as a daily driver that they also take to the track though.

dd8601fn 13 hours ago

$250k deposit for the mid tier? They’ll be in some Saudi collections for sure.

doginasuit 20 hours ago

That was my first thought, Cybertruck: The Car. But then it drove up a wall and stopped on the ceiling and flew down. That was awesome. I'm sure it will be a nightmare to own.

jbm 20 hours ago

Everyone is talking about the Cybertruck, but both the 3 and the Y have plenty of engineering problems as well. I believe both cars are listed as below-average reliability by CR.

Worse, there are no 3rd parties producing cheaper suspension parts, so your old Model 3 is going to have to spend 2000-3000$ on an yearly basis until you get sick of fixing the suspension. Tesla claims to have fixed the issue on newer models (and apparently they did a lot of work on the suspension), but they don't really take responsibility for their old cars so I doubt they will take responsibility when their design causes problems for you.

I do enjoy driving my 2019 SR+ Model 3, but I hate when people do the whole "Well on first principles, EVs have less parts so they are more reliable..." thing. My Toyota Sienna has been far more reliable than the Model 3, despite having many, many more parts.

motionlessveloc 20 hours ago

Early Model 3/Ys built in the US were unreliable. The ones built in Shanghai, though, are excellent. Berlin is somewhere in the middle.

FWIW, I'm into my fourth year of (Chinese-built) Model 3 ownership and it's been rock solid, the only services so far were to replace the air filter and wipers.

Waterluvian 18 hours ago

Kind of a silly question but I want to be sure I’m piecing together a fair picture: both of those are five minute tasks you do yourself outside the auto parts store / driveway, right?

browningstreet 18 hours ago

Yes. Or roll it into a $80 service charge when you get anything else done at a Tesla service center. Like the air filters.

Rohansi 18 hours ago

Accessing the air filter on the Model 3 isn't great but yes, can do it yourself. Many people just pay someone else to do things like this though.

moepstar 10 hours ago

???

Rip away center tunnel carpet on rhs (lhd vehicle), remove 2 screws from below glove compartment, fold away panel, remove cap from filter compartment, remove 2 filters - put back together in reverse order.

That's literally a 20 minute job if you about know what you should be doing - a.k.a. read about the process in the free service manual of Tesla (only need an account, free) or watched a YT video...

Rohansi 9 hours ago

The difficulty is more related to the tight spot it's in and not the process.

MSKJ 31 minutes ago

True, I broke the clip changing mine....

robotresearcher 17 hours ago

Ooh, and tires I hope! Mine eats tires.

ryukoposting 2 hours ago

That could be bad alignment or tire pressure. Are the tires cupping, are you getting uneven lateral wear, anything like that?

Besides that, EVs are just really heavy and weight wears out tires. Just a fact of life.

kibwen 19 hours ago

> My Toyota Sienna has been far more reliable than the Model 3, despite having many, many more parts.

This is less about EVs vs ICEs and more about Toyota's engineering quality vs Tesla's engineering quality, which is hovering somewhere in the vicinity of Homer Simpson's barbecue pit.

Waterluvian 18 hours ago

Hey now. Homer’s BBQ pit was a work of art, built through pure passion of emotion.

jbm 15 hours ago

I should note that I didn't mean to imply it was inherent that EVs were less reliable, but rather, that engineering mattered and Tesla's engineering always had underdeveloped parts.

rpmisms 17 hours ago

So many things you just said are wrong. The control arms are 100k mile parts, and you can easily replace them with Unplugged Performance versions for under $1k.

jbm 15 hours ago

Would you like to see the bills I got from Tesla? I've shared them before and I'm happy to do it again.

(Also my Tesla is 74.5k miles, so nowhere near 100k)

-edit-

I was a victim of misinformation from my local EV repair shop.

https://www.dormanproducts.com/pages/products/oe-fix/article...

The prices you are talking about are incorrect but there are 3rd party parts now.

plqbfbv 15 hours ago

And I have no idea what kind of driving he's doing to spend 2-3k$/y . I got Front Upper Control Arms replaced under warranty, exactly once, in the lifetime of my 2019 M3 (also Fremont-built). I do a yearly inspection just to catch issues before they have a chance to become really problematic, but for the past 4 years I've always been told that "the car's underside is just perfect, there's nothing wrong with it".

m463 19 hours ago

I liked the rounded one lots better:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/NextGenT...

(just personal preference)

m463 19 hours ago

I think the front view reminds me of the old lamborghini countach.

https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Lamborgh...

F7F7F7 17 hours ago

Reminds me of the car they'd dress up to look like a Countach, the Fiero.

F7F7F7 17 hours ago

Looks like a Fiero

Gud 17 hours ago

Looks good? The previous version looked incredible. This looks like the Delorean and the Cybertruck had an unwanted child.

mcrk 15 hours ago

I just wanted to get one for $1mln I have laying somwhere, but now I'll wait for more reviews. Thanks for the tip.

dzhiurgis 14 hours ago

Just buy it in 15 years when it has depreciated to nothing /s

MetaWhirledPeas 4 hours ago

> Let others do it, find out how late it arrives, what glued panels fall off at speed and wait for the inevitable recalls.

Sound advice for people looking for a practical car. But if you have Lambo money who cares? I have never seen a supercar described as reliable.

rtkwe 2 hours ago

People with lambo money generally also want a car that doesn't fall apart constantly AND rapidly lose its value.

anonporridge 2 hours ago

If you care about the car not rapidly losing value, you definitely don't have lambo money and you're too poor to be dabbling in supercar silliness.

wombat-man an hour ago

Er, is that not what Lambos do?

I always heard they were a pain to get serviced with long wait times. Not sure how well they hold their value either.

fooker 11 minutes ago

All supercars fall apart constantly and rapidly lose their value.

FabHK 20 hours ago

There are three configurations:

- Performance: road ready, seats two, active aero and a “multi-mode suction system.” 0-60 mph in under 1.6 seconds. Available by reservation.

- Thrust: race ready, seats two, adds rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters. 0-60 mph in under 0.9 seconds. Limited release.

- Rocket: seats one, adds thrusters around the perimeter of the car for upward and rotational movement. 0-60 mph in under 0.59 seconds and a top speed of over 230 mph. Invite only.

Per Electrek: https://electrek.co/2026/10/15/tesla-unveils-cyberfied-new-r...

Mawr 18 hours ago

> every usable void in the car is packed with carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) to store compressed gas

Hahah, the failure modes are going to be exciting.

EvanAnderson 31 minutes ago

When I heard "carbon-fiber" and "pressure vessel" in the same sentence I thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion

This would be the opposite of that, though.

cavoirom 12 hours ago

The rocket version is the real life bat-mobile to me. Impressive.

stogot 5 hours ago

What is the suction useful for? The engineering blows my mind but why would someone use this? Does it help on turns?

ceejayoz 5 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downforce

Yes, and at high speed, it helps make sure you don't take flight accidentally.

When you don't have enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e21ZjwZGjiQ

bittercynic 4 hours ago

It's for more traction. Not a road car, but this one does 0-100kph in just under 1s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQIu5tZ0vbQ

adamm255 3 hours ago

“Configurations”

Like any of this will materialise. Where’s the original Roadster people actually put down payments on?

fastball 2 hours ago

The original roadster was Tesla's first car.

rickdeckard an hour ago

As an engineer myself, watching the Hagerty interview [0] was an ...interesting experience.

Every time Tesla's VP of vehicle engineering [0] explains the Engineering of the product by stating that they are "breaking the laws of physics", everything he says is losing a bit of credibility...

[0] https://youtu.be/22rvpUecLts?t=791

delichon 21 hours ago

The livestream has the stunts: https://x.com/Tesla/status/2110788059008819215

charlesfries 21 hours ago

What is the practical use case of this? https://x.com/JehovaTrades/status/2110906028971938252

morkalork 21 hours ago

To play Spy Hunter irl?

iugtmkbdfil834 21 hours ago

You were never stuck in traffic I take it:D Insurance will be a bitch, but people will move out of your way.

throwaway173738 10 hours ago

FWIW if you’re that concerned about scaring other people out of your way you could just wave a gun around out the driver’s side window. You’d spend less money and get your desired effect.

iugtmkbdfil834 10 hours ago

Why would you suggest something so unnecessarily violent?

mcmcmc 4 hours ago

Cars kill just as many people as guns

dghlsakjg 2 hours ago

Some of us don't live in countries where this is acceptable.

dylan604 an hour ago

You're forgetting that other drivers very well may be armed with an even bigger gun.

cjbgkagh 21 hours ago

Neat, but that car has to be practically empty. It appears to have very low inertia.

By rough estimate, using hydroxide jet packs as a reference, I’d say they got it down to about 600kg.

td521534f12 21 hours ago

To brag to other, lesser billionaires.

phoghed 20 hours ago

Uhh to be sick af?

mrheosuper 20 hours ago

WTF, that the most cartoonist thing i've seen today. Does it really have to do the flip ?

jopython 20 hours ago

yes

ls612 20 hours ago

To show off? Like whatever you think of it the market for supercars is rich men who want to show off so Tesla is playing in that market.

wallst07 11 hours ago

Sexist much? https://www.instagram.com/supercarblondie

ceejayoz 9 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

ndriscoll 20 hours ago

Literally dozens of scenarios have been documented. e.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=f1B21Nd9oZ4&t=1000s

abrookewood 19 hours ago

Nice ;)

soderfoo 19 hours ago

Americans will do anything to avoid roundabouts.

carlosjobim 18 hours ago

What is the practical use case of having a bunch of high powered jets all around the car? It could be used to automatically avoid fatal accidents, or at least reduce risk and damage in an accident situation. I thought everybody who watched the presentation video would reach that conclusion.

sippingabonedry 18 hours ago

You are correct in that almost nobody commenting here watched the presentation.

doublerabbit 17 hours ago

If the car doesn't cause fatal accidents in the first place.

garte 15 hours ago

you know what happens to you if a jet engine moves your car out of the way? you have the accident inside your car by yourself, you become the accident. physics states that all forces will be equal.

root_axis 12 hours ago

> It could be used to automatically avoid fatal accidents

I find it genuinely hilarious that anyone could possibly think this is a good idea.

ceejayoz 9 hours ago

> It could be used to automatically avoid fatal accidents…

Or make a few! https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...

> SpaceX thinks it knows why its newest Starship spacecraft went boom this week. "Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing," the company wrote in an update on Thursday (June 19).

zormino 2 hours ago

I look forward to phantom braking changing to phantom launching your ass into the ceiling of an underpass

mcmcmc 4 hours ago

Flexing on the poors

B1FF_PSUVM 21 hours ago

Some smart cookies put up a scam video topping Google searches for the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lmBq00utE

AI Elon pressure selling "act decisively, double your money" by transferring crypto to some wallet and getting 2x back - yeah, right

(PS Google shut it down)

kkotak 18 hours ago

Youtube terminated the account :)

accountrequired 20 hours ago

Cool!!! Whoever thinks this is *not cool* please, leave your cool card at the door

flowerlad 19 hours ago

Cool, but not realistic. This is a prototype, if you have enough money you can build a prototype car that does just about anything. When the car starts shipping the "cool" features will be missing.

ralusek 19 hours ago

This is a cool prototype, though

flowerlad 9 hours ago

There are many cool prototypes for flying cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD2__BcAxSk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9hdO8avWbo

https://journal.classiccars.com/2026/10/16/delorean-enters-f...

margalabargala 7 hours ago

I would consider most of those more like "helicopters that can also drive".

still-learning 4 hours ago

and i don't see any of them actually flying in these videos

ashkankiani 4 hours ago

This sounds like it was written by Elon when he was posing as one of his family members. (in case people forgot he did that)

silisili 20 hours ago

This is something straight out of Rocket League. Completely impractical, but awesome at the same time.

abrookewood 19 hours ago

Fast forward to 11:15 to see the tricks.

robotnikman 18 hours ago

I'll admit, that was pretty cool

daemonologist 17 hours ago

The flying-on-RCS-in-gravity reminds me of those old videos of exoatmospheric kill vehicle tests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnofCyaWhI0

Patently absurd, of course, but amazing too.

radicalcentrist 16 hours ago

Not RCS (used a gimbaled turbofan instead), but the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle) is also incredibly cool.

okdood64 21 hours ago

Okay that's one of the coolest things I've seen in a while since the rockets landing.

Car looks half decent too.

esperent 21 hours ago

> Car looks half decent too

To me it looks like a mashup of a Ferrari and a Cybertruck. That's not a good thing.

eclipticplane 20 hours ago

Same; there are stylish super cars... this again looks like a 5 year old kid drawing like the Cybertruck does.

aresant 21 hours ago

This was 100% precursor to the absorption of Tesla into SpaceX and I’m here for it

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/tesla-spac...

hiitsmyaccount 20 hours ago

Yes, let's combine Twitter, an AI company, and a space company with a solar company, car company, battery company, and robotics company, so that we can have one huge valuation that can't be possibly delivered upon and losses will be absorbed for a short period. What could go wrong?

fnordpiglet 20 hours ago

It would almost be as big a monstrosity as Amazon

gizajob 20 hours ago

Japanese companies manage fine doing this kind of thing.

AlotOfReading 20 hours ago

What about Tesla's management style would you call Japanese?

gizajob 20 hours ago

I’m highlighting that companies can and do have all kinds of departments doing seemingly unrelated things if they want to.

AlotOfReading 19 hours ago

I'm pointing out that Japanese companies can do that because they're organized and managed like Japanese companies. Tesla is not, and in fact lacks pretty much all the organizing characteristics and long term planning that enables keiretsu to function.

gizajob 12 hours ago

Don’t think it requires layers and layers of management attending meetings for 12 hours a day to function as a prerequisite.

merekmob 19 hours ago

Kamikaze

Gigachad 20 hours ago

Do they have a gigantic tumor like twitter and Space AI slapped on the side? If all of the products were profitable it would work.

gizajob 20 hours ago

I don’t have time to look up whatever Masayoshi Son has wasted a few billion dollars on today, but yes kinda.

wnmurphy 19 hours ago

I'm glad someone else gets it.

dd8601fn 13 hours ago

I think Twitter is the one that actually makes money.

Until they sold all their compute to anthropic, Ai was the boat anchor.

dansquizsoft 12 hours ago

Starlink makes the money.

No way in hell is Twitter making a lick of profit.

atonse 7 hours ago

Reliance in India basically ran a severe loss for Jio (their new mobile network where they essentially gave the country free mobile internet), but paid for by the profits of their fossil fuel business.

For a while, didn't Amazon do the same? They basically ran a loss with Amazon retail but profits on AWS, until they spun off?

So yes, this is fairly common with conglomerates, (Amazon sold diapers at a loss to put diapers.com out of business). And in fact, this tactic is a target for anti-trust laws where they exist.

CoolestBeans 17 hours ago

Japanese keiretsu also usually have a bank at their center or have both horizontal and vertical integrations. Where they don't have integration, they at least have financial integration. Whatever Musk is doing is far less cohesive in every way.

dzhiurgis 13 hours ago

Did you forget X money and Musk's literally first job being in a bank?

CoolestBeans 6 hours ago

A payments platform is not a bank. Beyond the services being different and the customers being different (consumers vs businesses), both had to partner with... well a bank, to provide the actual financial services.

tim333 6 hours ago

Musk's hype the stuff up, raise money, can be applied to any venture.

CoolestBeans 6 hours ago

The only charitable part of this idea is that it will insulate the stock price from the actual balance sheet. It asks investors not if they want to invest in an EV automaker but in "Elon Musk Inc" essentially. He's been doing some variation of this his whole career, this would just give him the ability to dilute the numbers of each component industry further. The problem is the brand name of Elon Musk is worth a lot less than it was in the 10s.

killbot5000 20 hours ago

Tesla-Yutani

burnerRhodov3 20 hours ago

but... All elon companies. More valuable bundled, because all the elon lovers don't have to pick where they throw their tithes. I'd love it even more if they throw in a tunnel construction and a human brain implant company in the mix while they are at it.

mrheosuper 15 hours ago

Add weapon and tank and they will reach the scale of Samsung.

atonse 7 hours ago

Have you heard of the concept of Conglomerates?

In the US, GE makes your microwave, aircraft engines, and also the gas turbine your power plant uses.

Siemens makes appliances, MRI machines, and even nuclear reactors I believe.

Or in Korea: Samsung, Hyundai, LG. Samsung makes chips, TVs, washing machines.

Japan: Mistubishi makes washing machines and excavators and mining equipment.

India: Reliance has cell phone service, grocery stores, and oil rigs. Tata makes cars, has tier 1 datacenters, and runs hotels too.

This is hardly a novel idea.

0x457 3 hours ago

Samsung makes a lot more than that. Well, lots of them make a lot more than what is listed, but Samsung pretty much has division for everything.

wnmurphy 19 hours ago

This would be a horrible deal for Tesla investors.

Long-term investors would lose about 40% of their investment to subsidize the inflated valuation of X (bought by xAI), the inflated valuation of xAI (bought by SpaceX), and SpaceX (whose valuation is based on the assumption that demand for inference is effectively unlimited, and that everyone will prefer hardware in space over Earth).

The valuation of both companies was inflated prior to acquisition, and Tesla shareholders will be asked to dilute their investment by absorbing that cumulative inflation.

Not even to mention that Musk would have exclusive control over the entire conglomerate, with not even the pretense of a Board to check his power.

When even Steven Mark Ryan is like "let's pump the breaks a little bit," you know it's bad.

parineum 18 hours ago

> SpaceX (whose valuation is based on the assumption that demand for inference is effectively unlimited, and that everyone will prefer hardware in space over Earth).

Well, that and being the only reusable rocket company ever with an even bigger version on the horizon and a global Internet service that's about to get a whole lot better thanks to aforementioned rocket. Both of which are hugely profitable.

amanaplanacanal 14 hours ago

Rockets and Internet service are a tiny part of the valuation. It's mostly imaginary AI related sales.

parineum 8 hours ago

You don't know why people value the company and excluding the two very profitable parts of the business in your list is obviously misleading to the point that anyone reading that should be offended that you think they are that stupid.

ceejayoz 7 hours ago

> You don't know why people value the company…

We do, at least at the time of the merger, as it existed as separate parts prior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceXAI#Finance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering_of_Spa...

amanaplanacanal 6 hours ago

Their own numbers in the S1 they released before the IPO listed their potential market growth, and it was almost entirely in the AI division. These aren't my numbers, these are Musk's numbers.

mlsu 6 hours ago

It’s about Elon’s control over these companies. Creating a valuable company with durable revenue that produces products that the market actually wants, with stable governance by a board representing the shareholders of the company? Bah! What am I, a sucker?

He wants control, so that he can use investor’s cash to do epic stuff like humanoid robots, cyber trucks, an AI that tells you that apartheid was actually cool, rocket cars, real life brain controlled robot bacon chungus, etc.

mlsu 6 hours ago

Yeup. In 2025–

“Other shareholder meetings are snoozefests but ours are bangers. Look at this. This is sick.”

Elon’s pay package: he gets 400 million Tesla shares if he raises the market cap of tesla(xspacextwitterxAIx) to $8.5 trillion (nominal). He spent a cool 250 mil on making friends with the republicans, so as to ensure that his incoming epic awesome merger is not blocked.

A merger, plus the amount of inflation this government has already produced over the next decade, will probably see X co hitting Elon’s salary goals.

TheAlchemist 36 minutes ago

Tesla faking it at its best !

It would be an extremely cool demo if this thing was even remotely close to a car that can be produced and sold. Alas, this was something that could be used in a circus at best (where people would need to be very very far since it's very dangerous).

moffkalast 23 minutes ago

A circus showing these would never recoup the cost of even one being built, hah. But it is very cool. It's also neat to see the Brabham BT46 make a return after like 50 years.

palata 18 minutes ago

And I don't go to the circus to see expensive engineering. I go to the circus to see individuals doing amazing stuff.

moffkalast 8 minutes ago

I thought it was the animal abuse that was the main attraction? /s

purpleidea 10 minutes ago

Still waiting for the autonomous charging arm that you aren't supposed to bend down near.

baggachipz 4 hours ago

I'm sure they'll release this one as soon as the release the Roadster introduced 9 years ago.

boznz 3 hours ago

Incredible demo but I also have to agree, I will wait for the first Top Gear or Markus Brownlee unsupervised review before believing this project has been achieved.

richwater 3 hours ago

> Markus Brownlee

> unsupervised

This guy might be the most biased reviewer on the planet. Dude practically cashes checks from Apple on camera.

MSKJ 16 minutes ago

Everyone's biased, and his are consistent. He's not 'selling out'. unfounded hate

Maxatar 3 hours ago

This is the the release of the Roadster introduced 9 years ago. This is what people who put down a deposit (upwards of 250k) back 9 years ago are in line to receive.

daveguy 2 hours ago

Wonder if this round of suckers is going to have to wait 9 years for the next demo too.

cpt100 6 hours ago

I know its marketing but still it's super inspiring to me. Try pulling it off in real hardware. It's incredible.

deadnomore 6 hours ago

It’s a CO2 canister with no battery or motors on wheels. What was incredible again?

Sohcahtoa82 6 hours ago

Do you have any proof of this, or are you just parroting claims that others are making?

deadnomore 5 hours ago

To parrot other people’s claims I would have needed to read them first. So this is my own well informed speculation. I have worked with CO2 thrust and remote controlled cars in my hobby pursuits. This is the simplest way to achieve what was demonstrated.

moltar 3 hours ago

It can’t be CO2 because they said it refills itself.

deadnomore 3 hours ago

That wasn't what was demonstrated, so therefore it doesn't exist. With the past dishonest publicity stunts done before, Tesla has earned this extra level of cynicism.

nickff 2 hours ago

You're posting from a 1-day-old account...

a4isms 2 hours ago

I”m not going to get into Musk himself. Nor will I get into the artistic absurdity that a moder supercar represents. But I will speak for the hackers amongst us:

The problem with the demo is that it was vapourware. Period, full stop. It is not the car they are selling to us, and they haven't even begun making them. I am personally not a fan of pure concept products that exist only to polish the company’s crown.

Steve Jobs said that "Real artists ship," because the act of shipping is the act of making the incredibly difficult and important decisions that manage the enormous number of constraints that go into the actual product.

If people like concept cars that don't have to actually work or meet a specific price point, fine. It is entertainment, nothing wrong with that. But I am not and will not be impressed until, like Apple, the thing they show on stage is so far along that you can be expected to buy one within weeks, not years.

I am not telling anyone how to judge this. But by my very old-school standards, vapourware sucks.

fblp 2 hours ago

I actually think it's impressive that they have a prototype. It's less of a leap to think it could end up getting shipped. Whereas other competitors in the industry like Ferrari (Jony Ive collaboration) are launching cars with renders.

andsoitis 2 hours ago

It is pretty common for automobile companies to show concept cars!

henrymerrilees 2 hours ago

Most concepts never leave the ground. Sorry, I had to...

Zigurd 2 hours ago

Thousands of people put down deposit for this car. Well, for a car called roadster.

andsoitis 2 hours ago

Yes. And we're OK to wait.

hinkley 2 hours ago

Concept cars often having been run through either CFD or a wind tunnel and also haven’t been vetted for NHTSA requirements, and both those and coefficient of friction are why cars all start to look alike.

I can’t recall the vehicle now but there was a futuristic car around the turn of the century that had a lot of buzz, but changed dramatically for production and nobody liked it. But an engineer on the project said the concept car had less aerodynamic drag going backward than forward, which is quite an achievement.

That is one of at least a dozen experiences I have had that tell me not to get attached until the prototypes ship to car reviewers for examination.

rootusrootus 2 hours ago

The one I remember is the Pontiac Aztek.

2III7 2 hours ago

The Mercedes W124 had a cfd of 0.29. It doesn't look anything like modern cars with similar cfd. (VW Arteon, Volvo S60, Lexus IS)

horns4lyfe 2 hours ago

Idk I’m a fan of companies doing really cool stuff even if they don’t sell it

theteapot 2 hours ago

> it was vapourware. Period, full stop.

What sad reaction to a real life flying car.

throwuxiytayq 2 hours ago

Out of curiosity, what is your sad P(>500 people owning a flying Tesla by 2030)?

aldanor 2 hours ago

Must surely exceed P(AI doom)

reliabilityguy 2 hours ago

Why does it matter? Did you ask the same question in 2007-8 when the first Waymo cars were on the streets for testing?

No.

It’s a cool concept car, and very impressive engineering. I don’t get why people hate on it so much.

theteapot an hour ago

Zero. Maybe a dozen, non road legal ofc. And I'm not particularly sad about it. Sorry to disappoint.

jjulius 2 hours ago

What was demonstrated was not flight.

LorenDB 2 hours ago

Out of curiosity, how do you define flight? To me, I think the Roadster flew because it clearly maintained powered propulsion after leaving the ground. Sure, it only flew for a few seconds, but it's not far from the Wright Bros.' first flight.

lovich 2 hours ago

Being able to take off from the ground. Not using a second system to vacuum its way up to a platform and then fall slowly.

This machine demonstrated zero ability to gain altitude in the air alone.

scrlk 2 hours ago

The Kickflip demo showed it taking off from the ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vsHHPVhJg

rout39574 2 hours ago

I don't think you watched the whole show. The third stunt was taking off from a stop to jump over some vehicles. So it did gain altitude in the air alone.

lovich an hour ago

Well color me corrected. I’d probably quibble that this was a hop/jump the same way humans can jump but not fly, but I don’t have a strong definition at that point to argue for.

I’d need to go deep into something like being able to maintain altitude in the medium of air without positive impulse or something, but again, I don’t have a strong enough definition at this point.

gus_massa 2 hours ago

Woody said:

> This isn't flying, it's falling with style.

apsurd 2 hours ago

the timeline we're in is various adjectives including sad. reality never hits how you envision when you're 10.

rowanG077 2 hours ago

I don't get it. Musk has an insane track record of shipping things. Well later then he claimed but he usually gets it done. I'm not seeing anyone else leading companies that upended the domination of fossil fueled cars, paved the way for brain implants, build re-usable rockets and create global access to the internet.

ragequittah 2 hours ago

I too remember when we started colonizing Mars back in 2021. And that time I called my neighbor's Tesla robotaxi to drive me around in 2020.

deeg an hour ago

I don't need a robotaxi because I'm taking the hyperloop everywhere

teiferer 29 minutes ago

To where? Surely not to work since that's been made obsolete since autumn 2025.

dpweb 2 hours ago

Doesn't matter if the product is real. The idea is to cultivate a sense of wonder and adventure. To get people talking about you. Then you sell more of the products that are real.

zeusk 2 hours ago

Exactly, are we forgetting the apple airpower? or apple intelligence?

joemi 2 hours ago

To be fair, those were both post-Jobs projects at Apple, so Jobs' "real artists ship" quote doesn't exactly apply.

iAMkenough 2 hours ago

How much did AirPower pre-orders go for?

The first orders for this car were in 2017, still yet to be fulfilled. Tesla will keep taking money, without delivering anything, for decades to come.

zeusk an hour ago

At-least Tesla didn't get sued and settle for $250M.

For context: https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/24/apples-250-million-siri-settl...

Zigurd 2 hours ago

Doesn't matter if the product is real. The idea is to cultivate a sense of hope that the $250,000 deposit should stay where it's at, no matter what people talking about me think of that idea. At least I haven't bought a cyber truck.

mike_bob 2 hours ago

Yup, integrity doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is how many dollars you have in your bank account to buy influence!

justin66 2 hours ago

Unless the products that are real are Cybertrucks. No way in hell you're selling more of those.

everdrive an hour ago

That's true in practical terms but that doesn't mean I like anything about this sort of approach. It's not a positive thing; it's a successful thing.

mihaaly 33 minutes ago

Real?! From these circus folks? Their (lack of) sense for reality (practicality, safety) you see in this circus is scary! Same folks and mentality make those other ones too that you are supposed to use!

Hoasi 2 hours ago

Yeah, not judging either.

Looking at the pictures, design-wise, I’m almost tempted to ask: “what was the prompt?”.

moralestapia 2 hours ago

What a weird thing to be angry about.

Disregarding that, all stuff that Tesla (and SpaceX) have demoed had become commercial products, so I wouldn't call Tesla a vaporware company.

Sure, it takes them decades ... but that's different from not shipping.

lern_too_spel 2 hours ago

This will not ship with the demonstrated capabilities for reasons discussed elsewhere in these comments. GP isn't calling Tesla a vaporware company. GP is calling this product as demonstrated vaporware.

londons_explore 2 hours ago

It seems the 3 demos shown were even done with differing cars - it's likely that no single prototype car could do all 3 things!

Retr0id 2 hours ago

The gas tanks take hours to refill, so even with one car that could do it all they'd need 3 of them.

codechicago277 an hour ago

They should really consider going electric

yipinwong 2 hours ago

it's like saying, don't make no concept cars. No car manufacturers will follow that.

soperj 2 hours ago

Steve wasn't an artist. Did Steve ship a product when Atari asked him to redesign pong into a one player game? No, that was Steve Wozniak. Jobs paid him a cool $350 out of the $5k bonus he got for that. Maybe he was an artist. Con-artist.

DonHopkins 2 hours ago

At least Elon's dealer is regularly shipping him ketamine on time, in quantity, and under budget.

dylan604 an hour ago

I mean, if you were a dealer and had a customer like Musk, wouldn't you do the same?

uvdn7 2 hours ago

Concept products are not real products. Their purpose is often to make a point, to prove something is possible, to make a brand look cooler, or just to have fun. I don't think I would ever see this car flying on the road myself. But part of me likes the fact that there are people out there making crazy things like this. It is more fun.

evilantnie 2 hours ago

I've recently come to the conclusion that Musk isn't selling products anymore, he's selling memestocks. He's a master of grabbing attention in an attention economy and it seems to be working out well for him.

dylan604 2 hours ago

There are plenty of examples in the world where the one is all that is necessary. It's not like there are more than one Burj Khalifa building in the world. Many people pay for a one off car. There are multiple TV shows based on this very concept.

Just because it's not your hobby or within your budget, doesn't mean that others must feel the same way as you.

vannevar 2 hours ago

I think the event was a very Elon Musk way to say, we're not making a Roadster. Which makes sense, Tesla is leaning into completely self-driving cars and the Roadster as originally envisioned would be the opposite of that.

jiggawatts an hour ago

"As methods for by suicide-by-wealth go, it's classier than drugs, and more accessible than a carbon-fiber submarine" -- some Reddit comment.

Concepts cars are cars.

What was shown on stage is closer to the Apollo lander training rigs than a vehicle that you could purchase and drive on a public road.

It can never, ever be sold as a production vehicle! The COPV gas storage is under enormous pressure, and would explode with the force of a decent sized bomb if damaged in an accident.

These things would be regularly turning their owners into pink mist, emulating Stockton Rush at a larger scale.

topspin an hour ago

> I am personally not a fan of pure concept products that exist only to polish the company’s crown

I am. These machines push the limits of prevailing technology. Strong organizations set stretch goals and pursue them regardless of market viability. Sometimes they share this with everyone, and convention has named this practice "concept" cars. I appreciate when they take the risk to do this. And when they do it well, credit is deserved.

There are real engineers and technicians behind this. A lot of them. And they will tell the story of this event for the rest of their lives. I've known a number of people with such stories. They're among the best people I've ever met.

It is possible to exist without cranking the cynical knob to 11 at all times.

dkrich an hour ago

This is so spot on. These things work in a bull market and we’ve been in a bull market for arguably 15 years. In a bear market the distortions that were created over the previous years are reversed and usually to an extreme.

It’s somewhat notable that Tesla was up significantly overnight and closed the day down 2%.

I wonder if this is the beginning of a very lengthy period after which people will look back and wonder “what the hell was everyone thinking?”

pbhjpbhj 13 minutes ago

>It is not the car they are selling to us

Well, it's not the car he's selling to me because I'm not going to support white supremacist fascists who flip heil Hitlers when they celebrate buying an election. It could be the best car in the World, I'm not sending Musk money, I'd rather walk.

The sooner y'all stop funding this shit the better.

2III7 an hour ago

It's pretty cool that someone finally replicated the turbo boost jump function that K.I.T.T. had. Imagine having the boosters to avoid head on collision at 100km/h.

sumeno 6 hours ago

The audience for this must get really scared when the magician cuts the lady in half

jordand 6 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... - Worth a read if you haven't already

u1hcw9nx an hour ago

Tesla has lost the battery tech, volume EV manufacturing, and humanoid robotics to China (when trade restrictions don't apply). It's time to hype something different.

MadrasTh0rn 9 minutes ago

Look Trump is the entire reason the world is moving to briics with a foundation of geopolitics / multipolar background

It's really time to say Thiel and musk are briics backed inside attackers

zbrozek 21 hours ago

Can this be scaled down to a Roomba? Then it would both be more useful at picking stuff up off the floor, and able to recover from falling down the stairs.

al_borland 19 hours ago

All the dust around it on the floor would end up airborne again.

zbrozek 19 hours ago

That's OK if it's just to save itself from dying in the event of a fall down the stairs. Should be infrequent!

Thrymr an hour ago

Much cheaper to make it better at avoiding falling down the stairs (I've had two for years and they have never fallen down stairs). This is about as practical as the idea elsewhere in this topic that the roadster could avoid high speed collisions by boosting out of the way.

mrheosuper 15 hours ago

Imagine walking up stair and suddenly a roomba launch itself at your face.

I-M-S 2 hours ago

The bright side is that it would immediately vacuum all the debris it would cause in the process

peri-cl 13 hours ago

Vroomba!

Square-cube scaling being what it is, I think it'd be much more reasonable to use propellers (like quadcopters) than try to scale down COPV's to a Vroomba! size. That's actually an interesting product idea. A small flying vacuum cleaner could clean a variety of surfaces; not only floors.

(And you could even mount the charging station on the ceiling, so it doesn't take up floor space).

medler 7 hours ago

Roombas are already programmed not to yeet themselves off of stairs

fooker 3 hours ago

I guess nobody informed my roomba of this.

mrguyorama 4 hours ago

Yes, it isn't even special at all.

https://www.amazon.com/window-cleaning-robot/s?k=window+clea...

Fan cars are pretty old. From that perspective, the driving upside down part is "less impressive" but screw it, still cool.

I want to see it on a track going all out, but something about what they decided to focus on tells me nobody gives a damn about this actually doing anything performance car related.

lgl 10 hours ago

Tesla Roadster vaporware edition MK2: now with actual vapor!

akudha 10 hours ago

Why do car manufacturers brag about hitting 60 mph in 1, 2 or whatever seconds? For a normal person, does this really matter - what is the big deal if a car hits 60 mph in 5 seconds instead of 1? There are more important things like safety, repairability, longevity etc right?

FrustratedMonky 10 hours ago

Bruh. Chicks man. Chicks dig fast cars.

4ggr0 10 hours ago

as with lots of muscles, it's actually the dudes who care about this the most :D get hugely muscular, buy a nice sports car and dudes will absolutely love you.

m463 8 hours ago

You remind me of a friend who bought a nice sportbike. He thought he would attract lots of women.

He complained to me "I keep getting guys coming over to talk about the bike"

4ggr0 8 hours ago

yup! got a sports bike as well, same experience. actually the biggest fans of my bike are boys between ~3-15 years of age. smiling, pointing at me, telling me to rev or do a wheelie :D

andor 9 hours ago

Haha, that's exactly the reaction you could hear from the crowd in the demo video. Made for bros by tech bros.

weird-eye-issue 10 hours ago

It's just one stat and it makes for a good headline. Obviously those other things are important but they don't exactly fit into a headline. Oh and some people like fast cars. Why is that so confusing?

zen_kernal 10 hours ago

People are interested in speed performance. What other measure should we use?

gambiting 9 hours ago

As someone who has had a Mercedes AMG that could do 0-60s in less than 4s for a few years, it just gets boring so fast, and it makes you question why you bought the thing in the first place. It's unusable in almost every situation on the road, except for the rare "opportunity" when you stop at traffic lights next to a Golf R and yes turns out you have a bigger.....turbo.....than them. Well done, that 5 second ego boost was really worth all the money and looking like a dick to anyone above the age of 25.

Nowadays as a "petrol head" when I look at stats I want to see weight - as little of it as possible. Horsepower needs to begin with 2, maybe with 3 in some cars, any more than that and it's silly. I want reviewers to say the car puts a smile on their face driving it to work every day, not doing 160mph on the race track. And of course, high speed is "fun" - one of my favourite memories is driving at 158mph past Berlin at 4am - incredible. But the modern obsession with horsepower and 0-60 is...just stupid. Fast 0-60 time does not make for a fun or an engaging car. It just makes it fast.

dingaling 9 hours ago

" It's unusable in almost every situation on the road"

Yet it's a useful, comparable, measure for acceleration and is frequently exercised on track. If you had an AMG and haven't taken it for at least one track day then I question why you bought it. Image?

Maybe 30-70 would be more useful for determining overtaking capability, but that would require everyone in the motoring industry to agree to change at the same time.

gambiting 9 hours ago

>>If you had an AMG and haven't taken it for at least one track day then I question why you bought it.

Oh I have, and it was awesome. But 99% of the time I drove it to work and back, sitting in traffic, thinking to myself I'd much much much rather be in something more comfortable, more quiet, something that isn't using quite so much fuel just sitting there and something that didn't require new tyres every 8000 miles.

Like yes, speed is awesome - fast acceleration is cool. But the obsession with it is destroying the industry - like, it's so clear that a lighter Lamborghini with 400bhp would be a lot more fun to drive than a 2 tonne one with 1000 horsepower, no? Even if the latter does pretty good on the race track. But because everyone only cares about 0-60 times and horsepower we are where we are.

jubilee33 9 hours ago

Your just getting old, I mean I agree with u but I'm also old,

Most young boys have the Lamborghini poster on the wall even if it actually sucks to drive, especially the iconic Countach, I find pure joy in driving my old beetle now, or the past weekend a friends 1957 MGA, horrible safety, tiny engines, zero comforts, not even a radio, just a pure carthat can't even be sold anymore, but there will never be a better driving experience than an proper ancient British roadster.

benji-york 4 hours ago

As they say, it's more fun to drive a slow car fast, than a fast car slow.

oliwarner 7 hours ago

I'm sure the roads I drive must be different from yours, but when I started driving a Tesla in traffic, it felt like you can just teleport into spaces. The threshold for being able to overtake and pull into traffic without obstructing is so much lower.

Of course, it's also less safe. But the threat of a quick death in a lithium fire is the only reason some of us get up in the morning.

NordStreamYacht 10 hours ago

The more powerful the motor, the better the brakes and safety features.

I hope.

m463 8 hours ago

lol.

I think of F-150s that have quickly climbed over 400hp and can pull a giant trailer... but I don't think the brakes and suspension match.

(f-250 or f-350 might be more balanced when pulling those 30'+ trailers)

m000 10 hours ago

It matters a lot, when playing Top Trumps [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Trumps

fg137 10 hours ago

It's one thing they can brag about, you know. Dumbing everything down to a single number, regardless of whether it's meaningful, feels impressive.

The vast majority of LLM users -- not the average person here on HN -- doesn't know which "model" they are using, can't tell the difference and don't care, including many software engineers. You could ask the same thing about those LLM benchmarks.

judge2020 10 hours ago

For the Roadster, it's a supercar. None of those things matter much.

For something like the performance versions of their high-volume vehicles, it's partially for the same reasons people like sports cars, or at least how some people like a sports car that is faster / quicker and gives them more excitement while driving (obviously a lot of the appeal for sports cars otherwise is the sporty look/sound of the engine, which Tesla doesn't really deliver on at all).

dghlsakjg 10 hours ago

It’s standard measure of acceleration. If you are going to sell a car on performance (like say… a sporty roadster), it’s a great metric.

People in the market for a car like this care far more about performance than they do safety, repairability or longevity.

That’s why performance oriented cars talk about their acceleration, and minivans talk about safety, and pickup trucks talk about longevity. Their target market determines which of the various metrics are going to be the headline.

wat10000 9 hours ago

This is a sports car with a deposit that costs more than an ordinary new car, and with a price that would probably buy you a decent house. Nothing about this is meant for a normal person.

randysalami 9 hours ago

You answered your own question in your very second sentence. “For a normal person”. The modern economy increasingly does not cater to the “normal person” and they prove this constantly. Granted “normal people” stopped existing a long time ago. You have poor people, soon to be poor people, and people who think they will soon be rich but will really soon be poor. Of course then you have the rest but they are not people.

m463 8 hours ago

> The modern economy increasingly does not cater to the “normal person”

Is that a bad thing? Aren't there always a range of products that cater to different levels of interest?

If you're a "normal person" you don't need a 8000dpi mouse with RGB, or a Louis Vuitton purse, or a large big mac meal.

This is not poverty it is prosperity.

csa 7 hours ago

> Is that a bad thing? Aren't there always a range of products that cater to different levels of interest?

Sure.

I think the poster you are replying to is trying to say that the “k-shaped” economy is incentivizing the market to cater only to the high end and simply ignoring the low end.

A few businesses I own are dealing with this issue now. It’s just much more profitable and logistically easier for them to charge what seems like an absurd price, justify it with some inexpensive “white-glove” service, and just ignore the rest of the market.

On the one hand, this is a tribute to modern marketing that high value-add products and services can match with customers more efficiently. On the other hand, it has the potential to create a bizarre “race to the top” such that only suckers will cater to anything other than the top 1% of their target market (in terms of wealth / willingness and capacity to pay).

Where I currently live, this is happening with frightening efficiency with health care. Almost all of the “good” PCP doctors are going concierge, and the concierge prices are increasing at a rapid clip.

randysalami 6 hours ago

Normal person as in position in economic distribution, not normal as in not quirky or strange. Lots of quirky people all across the spectrum.

But to be clear, in my example products aren’t the only thing to which the economy doesn’t cater to normal people for (lower-middle class but increasingly middle and lower class). War, corruption, and genocide are all bad for the average person. Generally things that funnel money into hurting or enriching individuals. Both of these are inefficient and the inefficient use of resources, is hurtful to normal people. E.g. enriching an oligarch to build roads could be twice as much road if he takes a 50 percent cut. And the money sitting with him does harm, oppresses people. Food for thought.

andrewchilds 9 hours ago

Not to mention top speed. The US should have a federal or at least NY/CA state law that modern cars be electronically limited to 112 mph, as it is in Japan. There is no valid reason for a street legal passenger car to be travelling faster than that.

zulux 8 hours ago

I take my road car to racing events (SCCA) and get above 112 routinely.

I think Nissan had a workaround I could live with: GPS fencing around known tracks would activate/deactivate the speed governor.

m463 8 hours ago

Cool, just bring a gps jammer to point at the guy behind you on the straight.

searedsteak 6 hours ago

I live in Germany, and routinely drive faster than that. With good roads and reasonably trained drivers this isn't an issue

dghlsakjg 2 hours ago

That makes sense for Germany, but the US does not have universally good roads or reasonably trained drivers. Many states have no regular vehicle safety inspection. On top of all that, culturally, the US is just very different when it comes to respecting regulation. I have seen germans completely befuddled when they realize that Americans will intentionally ignore laws and regulations. To many Germans it seems like it is almost inconceivable that otherwise respectable people will just not follow rules sometimes.

dreamcompiler 8 hours ago

Speaking for myself I love the quick acceleration of electric cars because it enables you to safely pass other cars quickly on two-lane roads without needing to linger in the oncoming lane.