Tesla boss Elon Musk has shown off what he calls the world’s first flying car, and the demonstration drew gasps from the crowd. At an event in McGregor, Texas, on the night of Thursday, October 15, the Tesla Roadster used jets to leap over a line of parked cars. Whether it can truly fly, or only hop, is already being hotly debated.
A stunt with no driver
Video clips from the event showed the Roadster driving up an upside-down ramp, flipping in the air and dropping back to the ground. Musk said the car was controlled remotely "to make sure we don’t kill anyone." He admitted: "Success is not guaranteed. I mean that."
During the main stunt, the car used jets to clear a row of vehicles parked side by side. It reached 60 mph as it passed over them in midair.
Big promises
Musk told the crowd that "flying cars are real," and said the car has thrusters, including main thrusters at the rear. He admitted it was "not necessarily a safety-optimized car." According to him, the Roadster will be available by 2028 and "can basically fly like a rocket." He added: "It could do rolls. It could do crazy gymnastics. Whatever you want, really."
Last year, Musk said on a podcast that Peter Thiel had pointed out that the future was supposed to have flying cars, even though he had voiced skepticism about flying vehicles back in 2014.
Seeing is believing
Afterwards Musk told the cheering Tesla fans that the live audience was there to prove the stunt was not AI or special effects. "You guys can tell people you saw it with your eyes," he said, "because what you see with your eyes, you will not believe."
Fans can already reserve a car on a "Reserve Your Roadster" webpage. A refundable $50,000 deposit secures a "performance" model, while a version with "thrust" and "acceleration thrusters" needs $250,000. The full price has not been released, and Musk conceded: "I’m not sure it’s necessarily legal in all jurisdictions."
The experts are not so sure
Tesla is not the only company chasing the dream. Flying cars, often called eVTOLs, take off and land vertically like a helicopter, then fly like a plane. Several firms have tried, but engineering roadblocks remain.
Roger Connor, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, said aircraft are extremely sensitive to weight, while road vehicles need bumpers and crumple zones. A hybrid, he warned, would likely be "a poor performing aircraft and a poor performing vehicle, and also quite expensive."
Jim Dukhovny, chief executive of rival firm Alef, said a hop is entirely feasible, but the hardest part is the transition from rising vertically to moving forward without losing lift. "We’re not talking about sustained flight," he said. "We are literally talking about hopping."
For now, the Roadster has shown it can jump a line of cars. Whether it will ever cruise through the sky remains unclear.
Image credit: Tesla
Source: Daily Express US
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