New Tesla Roadster accelerates to 60 mph in 0.81 seconds and does barrel rolls in the air

Tesla and SpaceX unveiled a prototype of the new Roadster at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas, on Thursday night, October 15. The electric car can't quite fly yet. Under the conditions of the demo, though, it accelerated to 60 miles per hour (about 97 km/h) in under a second using boosters, drove upside down, and pulled off corkscrew jumps in the air.

Elon Musk, who runs both companies, explained why an audience was invited to the event. By SI, he meant "Super Intelligence," the term the White House prefers.

We need an audience to prove it's not AI or SI.

The reveal carried extra weight for Tesla. Roadster deposits opened nearly ten years ago. In 2018, a cherry-red first-generation Roadster with a mannequin named Starman behind the wheel launched into space on a Falcon Heavy rocket as a publicity stunt.

Other Tesla presentations went less smoothly. At the 2019 Cybertruck unveiling, Tesla's design chief shattered two of the supposedly unbreakable Armor Glass windows. The pickup later sold worse than the Ford Edsel, one of the most infamous commercial flops in American automotive history.

The Roadster prototype is a joint project between Tesla and SpaceX. According to Musk, it uses an "advanced ultra-high pressure air tank" to power SpaceX cold-gas thrusters. For safety reasons, the demo took place far from the stage.

Success is not guaranteed… But if it doesn't work, we're at a safe distance.

It worked. In the demo video, the prototype launched upside down off the top of a half-circle ramp and then went into a corkscrew in the air. Later, the Roadster jumped over the entire Tesla lineup monster-truck-style, spinning again mid-flight.

The car has, obviously, attitude control thrusters and main thrusters in the rear, so it can basically fly like a rocket, and it could do rolls.

At another point in the presentation, Musk made a statement about the future of Tesla's lineup.

This will actually be, long-term, the only manually driven car that Tesla makes.

Suction fans that create low pressure under the floor make upside-down driving possible. Musk said they provide more than 2 Gs of cornering grip. He admitted that few people want to drive upside down, but argued that the "downforce of the car means you can corner incredibly well."

Combined with the acceleration, that should let the Roadster, as Musk promised, "crush every track record that has ever existed." Judging by the livestream, the cold-gas thrusters are deafeningly loud. Musk fired them up near the audience for just a few seconds.

Tesla played a clip of the Roadster hitting 60 mph in one second, followed by a live test where the same acceleration took 0.81 seconds. Musk said the SpaceX thrusters deliver 80 kilonewtons of thrust, a spec that's unusual for cars.

The thrusters run on compressed air, so they need no separate fuel. Still, the roar of the boosters and the blast of air out the back probably make the car an unpleasant thing to stand near. Musk joked that the upper limit of acceleration is probably around the point where G-forces cause the retina to detach.

For the finale, the prototype launched itself straight up from the ground and performed a corkscrew in the air. None of the stunts ended in a SpaceX-style explosion, which visibly relieved Musk and the others on stage. A Starship mission in September 2026, by comparison, ended in a fiery finish.

The Roadster will come in three configurations:

• Performance

• Thrust

• Rocket

Only the Rocket version gets the thrusters that allow movement on a vertical axis. The practical use of corkscrew jumps on public roads is unclear, and the legality of the feature is in question.

According to MotorTrend, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) classifies any vehicle that rises even an inch off the ground as an aircraft. Ahead of the event's original October 1 date, the agency imposed airspace restrictions around the McGregor facility. That suggests the Roadster would likely fall under FAA rules that limit use of such features to pre-approved areas away from traffic.

Tesla already has a long history of conflicts with its primary safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The agency has opened investigations into Tesla vehicles before, including over traffic violations while driver-assistance systems were active.

According to Musk and his team, the new Roadster enters production in 2028. They made a point of assuring the audience that it's a real timeline, not a rough estimate. Tesla shared no other concrete details, including a full spec sheet or a price.