Elon Musk Fills Joe Rogan In On Tesla Roadster's Hovering Ability

Elon wants the Roadster to hover, but can he make it happen?

By: Michael Cantu

Feb 11, 2021 at 5:39pm ET

Add InsideEVs as a preferred source in Google

Comment

The development of the Tesla Roadster isn’t complete yet, but that hasn’t stopped Tesla CEO Elon Musk from talking about it on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. On his third appearance in the podcast, Elon talks about the Roadster's ability to hover and about placing a thruster behind the license plate. This sounds like science fiction, but it’s not.

Many topics were covered in the podcast but the part about the Tesla Roadster hovering is what most want to know more about. Elon stated that the engineering of the Roadster will be done this year with deliveries possibly happening as soon as next year. Tesla has been developing the Roadster for several years now.

“We’re going to throw some rocket technology at that car,” said Elon Musk.

To help improve its already blistering acceleration, Elon wants to put cold-gas SpaceX thrusters on the EV. This would be part of what the company calls the SpaceX package. He also said that he wants to make the Roadster hover by putting thrusters underneath it, but unfortunately for us, they haven’t figured it out yet.

“I want it to hover. I’m trying to figure out how to make this thing hover, without, you know, killing people. I thought, maybe we could make it hover, but not too high. So maybe it could hover, like, a meter above the ground, or something. So, if you plummet, you blow out the suspension, but you’re not going to die. Maybe, I don’t know, six feet. If we put a height limit on it, it will probably be fine,” said Musk.

But what about traveling while hovering? Of course, Joe Rogan asked that question, and Elon gave a simple reply, “Yeah.” Traveling while hovering will be “pretty fast,” but restricted to the amount of time in the air. Although, Musk does point out that the SpaceX package will remove the rear seats (making it a two-seater), replacing them with a high-pressure carbon overwrap pressure vessel and a series of thrusters.

What do you think?

View

Comments

However, Musk admits hovering might not be possible.

“At a minimum, I’m confident we could do a thruster where the license plate flips down, James Bond-style, and there would be a rocket thruster behind it, and that gives you three tons of thrust.”

In a separate tweet, Musk explained how a drivable version of the Roadster could hit the roads this Summer. And now that the tri-motor drive system and advanced battery work are done, let's hope Tesla engineers are focusing on making the super EV hover.