Growing up, every vision of the future featured flying cars. Elon Musk seems determined to finally make it happen. 

At a product reveal staged at a SpaceX rocket development facility in Texas, the billionaire CEO showcased a prototype of the long-delayed Tesla Roadster. 

The event featured high-flying stunts, air-pumping cold thrusters, and a driverless demonstration that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie. 

“Turns out the future does have flying cars,” Musk wrote shortly after on X.

The highlight was brief, wild, and entirely experimental. Propelled by 10 ultra-high-pressure air nozzles fed by internal compressed tanks, the prototype used underbody suction to cling to a steep ramp, hang upside down, and spin off. It leaped over a line of parked Teslas, flipped mid-air, and used bursts of compressed gas to break its fall before landing safely in a cloud of white smoke.

The specs sound absurd. Musk claims the production model will reach 0 to 60 mph in under a second — and the credit for this goes to rocket-thruster technology. 

“Success is not guaranteed,” Musk told the crowd, explaining that the test ran autonomously for safety. “I mean that. It’ll probably work, but if it doesn’t work, we’re at a safe distance.”

Tesla’s next-generation electric Roadster features an all-wheel-drive powertrain, seating for four, 10,000 Nm of wheel torque, a 620-mile range, and a top speed exceeding 250 mph. The standard model costs $50,000 to reserve.

Upgrading to the Thrust Variant requires a $245,000 follow-up payment and adds SpaceX cold-gas rear thrusters alongside an active multi-mode fan system for downforce, cutting acceleration down to under a second.

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