Tesla’s ‘Flying Roadster’ May Debut This Month Alongside A Street Legal Version

The second-generation Roadster is expected to get SpaceX-developed thrusters.

By: Suvrat Kothari

Aug 14, at 10:29am ET

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Tesla is preparing to showcase the second-gen Roadster as early as this month, per a new report.
It will be a flying car with SpaceX-developed technology.
The demo vehicle will be remotely operated due to the noise and force of the SpaceX thrusters.

Tesla’s decade-long promise to reveal its next-generation Roadster may finally become a reality this month. The second-generation Roadster won’t just be a road car, it could also feature technology designed to help it fly.

The Roadster could be equipped with SpaceX-developed cold-gas thrusters, The Information (paywall) reported Friday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Tesla is expected to showcase the car’s capabilities at an event at SpaceX’s testing facility in McGregor, Texas as early as this month.

The Roadster will reportedly be remotely operated during the demonstration because of the noise and force generated by the SpaceX thrusters. Tesla is also expected to show two versions of the car: a standard Roadster and a limited-edition model equipped with the SpaceX technology. The limited-edition model, however, reportedly won’t be street legal and could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.

Tesla first unveiled the second-generation Roadster in 2017, but the car’s launch has been delayed several times since. A couple of years ago CEO Elon Musk said that the company had changed the Roadster's design goals.

"Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster," Musk said in 2024 in a post on X. "There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car."

The original Tesla Roadster, which launched in 2008, was one of the first series-production, street-legal electric cars. It helped prove that EVs could drive long distances, deliver impressive performance and be highly desirable in their own right. It’s now an icon, with its legacy pretty much cemented in history.

First-generation Tesla Roadster.

Tesla was still a scrappy EV startup at the time. But the Roadster, and the mass-market models that followed, helped turn it into the trillion-dollar EV giant it is today.

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That gives the next-generation Roadster some pretty big shoes to fill. If this report is accurate, we may finally find out this month whether one of Tesla’s most ambitious EVs yet can live up to the hype.

Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com