Nine years after it was first shown, the second-generation Tesla Roadster has finally been revealed, and it can fly. At an event at SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, Tesla showed the two-seater driving up a curved wall until it was hanging upside down, flipping over a line-up of parked Tesla vehicles and hovering on jets of compressed air from thrusters borrowed from SpaceX.
Before the main event, guests at the 4,000-acre site got what design chief Franz von Holzhausen called a “little pre-show”: a static fire of a SpaceX Raptor rocket engine.
“You’re going to see the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company,” said Elon Musk, who also explained why the stunts were performed in front of a live crowd. “We need an audience to prove that it’s not AI,” he said.
