Vehicles - Roadster
Tesla: Making SpaceX thrusters work in a vehicle instead of a vacuum took all-new hardware & controls. Every usable void in the Roadster is packed with carbon fiber overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs)
The other vacuum car that can drive upside down actually has screens to pick up track debris. You have to empty it out at the end of your session. At the end of the day, these cars are about as practical on the street as 1000 hp. But you're not buying to be practical.
Rocket
Invite Only
Air ready with seating for one. Features a multi-mode suction system paired with cold-gas thrusters positioned around the perimeter of the vehicle that support forward and upward acceleration as well as lateral rotational movement. So yes, it can fly.1
Note: Not approved for public road use.
Will be interesting to see how it’s handled. Since it can go vertically off the track, there could be more risk of property damage than just something that stays on the ground on the track.
You really think it would necessitate a tfr? It doesn't seem like it would be enough of a hazard to possibly endanger aircraft. Unless in crash testing they note it ejecting debris
Well if it's an 'airplane', it's not a certified aircraft. It's not light enough to be ultralight. Therefore, you'll need a waiver or exemption or TFR or COA. What if it was considered a 'rocket', if you didn't sit in it, maybe thrust is low enough for Amateur Rocket. Maybe a designated spaceport. Otherwise you're a rocket operation that needs a site license, launch license, TFR maybe. I mean sure, the FAA could decide to recognize it as a new class of launch but when have you seen the FAA move quickly? Or actually, indoors would eliminate the need for FAA approvals.
Oh very interesting. I wonder if they just did their due diligence and got one, (I'm sure at the spaceX testing site they have that connection fast tracked and on speed dial) or if it was specifically required.
But realistically I would imagine any company or person who has the resources to even get the full RCS spec would be more than capable of getting a TFR no?
Argue all you want but the FAA would consider it flying. It might be best classified as a rocket. From the FAA: Rocket means an aircraft propelled by ejected expanding gases generated in the engine from self-contained propellants and not dependent on the intake of outside substances. It includes any part which becomes separated during the operation.
The one they brought out on stage lacked the thrusters that allowed the flips. That is probably more like what will be available to buy sometime in the future.
The one that did the flips was just a stunt car.
Also I wonder what the insurance will be on the production model one with the thrusters. I can’t imagine a sane regulatory body allowing you to use the thrusters on the road.
Go on the Roadster page that is now up on Tesla’s site. They have a few photos or renders of the one with the thrusters in the stunt car and possibly the “Rocket” trim.
From their live you had this pretty clear view of one of the downward facing ones.
Go rewatch the stream archive or look at the Thrust model on the website, no downward facing thrusters. The “Rocket” does seem it might have those downward thrusters but that feels like a stretch because of regulation, insurance, and safety.
It took me a few times before I trusted FSD, it might take me a few more times before I fully trust going upside down at being flipped around with air thrusters... lol
Nothing will happen, because as Elon said, this feature is only available on special order. Other cars won’t have it, so the question is what is going to be in these spaces for the production version?
You wont. Rocket thrusters are not road legal, even the horizontal thruster model is track only. The road legal version only has the suction fan and active aero
The tank is at the center line of the car. I’m sure they have thought of this. Natural gas and hydrogen cars have been on the road for decades. They are at least 3000 PSI. It would take a massive wreck to have issues.
I’m not concerned about the media being flammable or explosive, but rather what pressures are required for these tanks to hold for the exhaust velocities used. That kind of pressure vessel losing integrity is somewhat worrying, especially if they are taking up frame and crumple zone space to fit them.
yeah, there's a clip of a dude slashing the tire of a truck online. He loses his T-shirt and seems like he got a good slap to his head. That's 2bar, maybe 4bar tops? Trucks are 8.5bar.
That being said The Toyota Mirai hydrogen car has 700bar pressure (in tanks centrally in the floor of the car) way smaller than this. That is in addition flammable.
AI says cold air thrusters is 200-700bar, no matter what, you don't want that on top of being in a crash.
It’s possible, well demonstrated and with a clear department of transportation certification path. COPVs for the road are safe in accidents.
Toyota Mirai has 3 fully certified 10,0000 PSI hydrogen COPVs. They have been tested under crash, bonfire, gunshot etc (DOT very). They make thousands of them a year. Toyota designed and builds them in house. They’ve been developing over 20-30 years now. Toyota is a conservative company - it is safe. Tesla/SpaceX can certainly do the same.
Hyundai, Arde, etc have also been doing it. Hydrogen and compressed natural gas (think of all those city buses) are the big road applications.
It's a nice marketing stunt, but it's obviously a shitty idea to put COPVs into a road vehicle, whether on public roads or not.
COPVs are old tech in spaceflight, but known to be prone to failure. SpaceX experienced that themselves, multiple times in fact. Remember AMOS-6, CRS-7 and the 2025 Starship explosion?
I have my doubts that we will see the thruster version in practice at all.
Absolutely right. Toyota Mirai has 3 fully certified 10,0000 PSI COPVs. They have been tested under crash, bonfire, gunshot etc (DOT cert). They make thousands of them a year. Toyota designed and builds them in house and we know how conservative Toyota is - they need to ensure safety to protect their brand. Tesla/SpaceX can certainly do the same.
It's not about practicality it's a halo car, the advantage is that you can go even faster that's it. This isn't meant for everyday consumers but the people that are looking at buying a supercar.
Its a flagship / halo car. None of it is supposed to make sense. Otherwise, we should all be riding ~54 horsepower cars that seat two.
In terms of being over the top - This has always been the case in the car industry, but unironically - Tesla typically delivers.
Anyone who's been to an auto show knows that almost every single concept that is shown is really REALLY far from the production model that comes out. Super exotic, unusabley large wheels. Steering angles that couldn't be used in a real world - excessively low ride heights. beautiful body lines with no windows and no means for mass production or low speed impact crash test ratings.
Interiors from the future - seamless - completely infeasible large long homogonous parts.
I'm not saying we should excuse Tesla for their super long delays, but at least the concept/unveilings LOOK like their final release. From exterior through interior. Typically, what you see is what you get. Ignoring timelines, the most we've probably seen them miss is the Cybertruck (battery specs mostly) - otherwise that truck is effectively the same truck as we saw at the unveiling.
Halo cars / Flagship cars are supposed to be the advertising/marketing to show the tech and strength of the company. We all hope some of the R&D that goes into it also trickles down the chain. Tesla isn't going to be the first nor the last to do something spectacular for a flagship car. This one is just insane because they decided to put rockets on it.
Yes. And they're certified for 10 years and can't be replaced, which is why old hydrogen cars are so cheap - you have to drive them on the tiny, regular gas tank.
It's a demo. They can do whatever they want if it's a one off. This reads as something the engineering team thought would be cool and they got the green light from LT. And yes it was cool even if it's a dumb one off. Really wish we got this type of innovation in sports like F1.
Neither amos-6 nor crs-7 failures were directly caused by copv unreliability. For crs-7 the root was a snapped steel strut, for amos-6 the copv only failed because LOX entered into the wrapping.
Copv are pretty commonplace in a lot of industry and generally pretty reliable. More reliable than steel thanks for example.
Wow, so pretty unlike any and every track supercar out there that also aren’t street legal and require significant overhauls after beating on it at the track.
Who cares. A car doing a kickflip off an inverted ramp and sticking the landing is cool.
Huh? This was definitely a marketing stunt but COPVs are in no way outdated. They are relatively new compared to other techniques and are still the forefront of pressure vessel tech. If done well, they can definitely be used in cars, trucks, etc etc, as evidenced by the fact that they are used in many of those
This wasn’t made for practicality. It’s engineering flexing from the SpaceX team. They probably learned something from developing this that will apply to other useful things
Because people paid money for a product that now is considered "obviously just a marketing stunt" and "engineering flex". That's the issue for me.
Tesla took 5 figures 10 years ago for a product that is now officially dead. That's not okay
Ur right, DerBoi. Reddit shouts the shareholders unfairly control everything, but suddenly when it’s the middle class being affected, it rattles the bots lol
Comments here are similar to spaceX first reveal of rockets landing.
Now they are launching those rockets almost every week.
And of course this car wont be street legal, and the version with rockets cost 500.000usd dollars, you guys think there will be idiots flying this car into buildings everywhere ??
It is a very different scenario as “rocket cars” are not going to be mainstream as they do not have any usage apart from cool demos.
But the suction system might become mainstream for EV hypercars. It was already used in Formula 1 back in the day, and by other prototypes. I think that we did not see any big manufacturers experimenting with it because it is a tech that was banned from racing many decades ago. But it is definitely a tech that works and has already won races in F1.
This is why if you want to succeed in life and make true innovation you can't give a shit what other people think. Once you do that, success starts happening
If the version with rockets ever get road legal approval, it will most likely be locked in crowded areas, areas with heavy traffic, or most likely in any normal road.
I dont think the driver will be able control the car on “flight”mode, it might only do pre-programmed stunts and will use its sensors to check if the area around is clear.
And i dont believe this car can carry enough compressed air to really fly, it might be only enough for 1 or 2 jumps or landings until it gets recharged.
Is not like this car will be more dangerous than any other supercar that can go 300km/h and reach 100 in 3 seconds… There are lots of idiots out there killing innocent people in all kinds of cars.
Well im not a qualified person, but given the weight of a car i would imagine that you would need a very high volume and pressure to lift the car for a certain time. Would the car be able to keep compressing air at equivalent or higher rate than whats being used while the thrusters are on? I dont think so…
Right - I’m just saying that makes it inherently more dangerous than a car without a compressed air bomb in the back. Making it far more dangerous than the average supercar.
The issue is probably that this car can get you into a really bad situation much faster than you can react. As you said, preprogrammed stunts, so you press the button, and you better hope the landing spot is safe when you land because you can't back out after pressing the button. So you better nothing goes wrong after pressing the button because stopping isn't an option.
People acting like this stupid car can defy the laws of thermodynamics.
This volume with this style of engine and this type of fuel can expect a
to fly for like a minute at most ? That's not gonna change ok? Not in 100 years. WTF happened to people. If they had a F35 style turbine in it, it would fly for like 15 minutes and cost a billion dollars. Gave it large rotating lift surfaces and we can get to hours. Wait, we already have those. They are called helicopters.
I'm hoping some dumbass millionaire will take this on the road, try to jump my car and land on top of me. I bet the settlement money would be pretty decent and I could afford one of these myself so I can pass it forward
From an engineering perspective, they're great when used appropriately.
But if you ignore the fact that they don't do well against external pressure, or if you ignore the videos of COPVs turning into missiles when your developmental rockets explode...
I'm really interesting this feature, but that could make roadster more weight. Anyway, I agree most people who look supercar don't really care about trackable.
Counteract G-forces in a corner. Normally your tires are pushing against the momentum of the car while turning. With thrusters you have more tire grip for acceleration and braking.
Hope you like to race solo, no way it could be used in close contact to other racers. If it's strong enough to move the roadster it'll blow the other cars off the track.
We need to set up a no rules car battle racing league.
Can it be used as a safety feature?
I mean that the thrusters aren’t manually controlled but only engage as a last resort. For instance when the car calculates that a collision is inevitable without the use of the thrusters?
If a car senses it's about to get into an accident, does it somehow dump all the pressure at once, or is "every usable void" in this car potentially a deadly 700bar explosive bomb?
For what it’s worth Ford also designed the gas tank in the Pinto.
Just like with Ford, are we supposed to hate the figure-head and not the product?
Seems like everyone forgot how similar Elon is to Henry Ford, in the worst ways. Ford wanted a social media platform to speak his mind and bought the Dearborn Independent. Ford used his newspaper to vomit antisemitic propaganda and conspiracy theories. Henry went as far as requiring his dealerships across the country to carry his newspaper.
Sound familiar? Elon deserves the ridicule. If Tesla investors want Tesla products to be viewed objectively, then some separation from Elon is a must.
The marketplace is married to emotion, thus I am not sure how Tesla can complain about emotional/polarized responses to this launch while simultaneously being led by a highly polarizing individual.
Pretty cool. The "batmobile" had a large jet engine on the back burning some kind of imaginary fuel for thrust. Really neat to see something more realistic actually implemented and demonstrated, achieving the same effect if not actually greater effect than they actually show in the show/films.
How many real people (not bot spam accounts) actually believe this stunt was real?? It looks fake as hell to me and completely unjustified to boot! What’s the schtick?
I’ve worked on a flying car and the thing that killed it wasn’t tech, it was all the regulations with the faa.
The faa was involved in the reveal, not sure if they will be for any flying version. Even a very low and short duration flight usually triggers the faa involvement.
I mean, what specifically has been engineered here that isn't just "Pressure source, tubes, nozzle"? This is a PR stunt and honestly it seems like the bots are out in full force.
Sounds like something a boy would say, and also is something bots ARE saying. It's the constant line: "Literal coolest thing ever" or "This is literally the coolest thing ever".
Human bots are called NPCs, but they're still bots. ;)
I'm so sick of tesla fans thinking that Musk spending milions of pointless gimmicks is actually gonna fucking win them anything. He stuck rocket motors on a empty car shell. Those motors probably can run for 30 seconds at most. How the f is that useful to anyone?!??
They keep wording it “SpaceX thrusters” but what about them is SpaceX? They aren’t burning kerosene! Seems like a talking point to help push the merger Musk wants to do.
I think it's mainly a reference to the nozzle's. It could even be the system is the same except it uses a compressor and a gas release system. Honestly, it isn't impressive, but it's a PR thing and it sounds impressive to people who have no frame of reference and are only half paying attention.
They're, oddly enough, the ones most likely to buy "on a vibe" and the vibe is the pseudo-brainwashed opinion implanted by both paid advertising and general sentiment in other forms of media.
The iPhone is a good example. People don't know why they get them over and over beyond "it's what I've always had". Half of the features fall on deaf eyes, ears and minds. They just know it's what to buy and have become familiar with how to use it and that's it.
Yeah I later realized it’s the cold gas Nitrogen thrusters… which were being used (not just designed) all the way back in the 60’s and 70’s on various satellites and upper stages. I guess fair play, but considering SpaceX is famous for their actual rocket engines it seemed silly to me.
No chance someone was steering it live, they would have pressed a button that said "execute program" and all the timings go off exactly when they need to.
They aren't going to risk a demo failing because the guy at the controls didn't nail the barrel roll.
Maybe the distinction between autonomous vs remote controlled is not clear enough.
Meaning on-board program vs off-board program being sent wirelessly. But no one person steering it remotely, it was all automated, and timed, and pre-programed. If it was being run locally on the car vs being run wirelessly doesn't actually matter.
SpaceX has proven hundreds of times they can do autonomous propulsive landings with rocket boosters much heavier, much larger, and moving much faster than a Tesla Roadster.
All those thruster firings were computer controlled, just like the exoatmospheric kill vehicle tests in the 90s. It’s the same technology using different thrusters.
There was something in the car. My thoughts were that was supposed to be a surprise as next Optimus or something but it malfunctioned and didn’t get out of the car. It’s like they expected it to but it didn’t work
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u/PersonalDebater New to the sub 2d ago
Was it really worth putting all this effort in instead of releasing the 2020 Roadster roughly as it was? They could have circled back to this later.