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Tesla's Roadster flies on rockets
The unveiling stunt
The car later used the rockets to jump over five other Tesla vehicles in what the company called a kick flip. Musk has promised for years a car that could fly and hover using SpaceX rockets. The Roadster also posted a zero to 60 time of less than one second, and executives claimed it will top 230 miles per hour.
The 2028 promise
Musk said on stage that the car goes into production in 2028, then added, "Actually for real." Some buyers put down deposits of up to $250,000 in 2017.
The last human-driven car
Tesla is pivoting to autonomous cars, AI, and robotics, which makes the Roadster the last human-driven car it will ever make. Musk did not respond to shouted questions at the event about its price.
How can rockets flip a car?
A rocket thruster pushes gas out at high speed, and Newton's third law pushes the vehicle the opposite way. Thrusters placed off-center produce a twisting force as well as lift, which is how spacecraft turn. SpaceX's Falcon 9 uses cold gas thrusters fed by compressed nitrogen to steer parts of its flight. After the 2017 reveal of the Roadster, Musk described an optional package of SpaceX cold gas thrusters for the car.
Why is sub-second zero to 60 so hard?
Tires can transmit force only up to the limit of their grip, and even sticky road tires have a friction coefficient of roughly 1 to 1.5. That caps acceleration from the wheels near one to one and a half times gravity. Reaching 60 miles per hour in one second takes about 2.7 times gravity. Thrust that does not depend on tires, such as from rockets or from downforce pressing the tires into the road, can get past that limit.
Why was the first Roadster a milestone?
Tesla's first car, built from 2008 to 2012, used a chassis adapted from the Lotus Elise. It was the first highway-legal production electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells, and it earned an EPA range rating of 244 miles. Its debut showed that an electric car could be fast and long-ranging at once. Tesla built roughly 2,400 of them.
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