Tesla Roadster Jumps a Semi and Hits 0-60 in 0.81 Seconds,…

The Tesla Roadster ran up an inverted ramp, flipped in mid-air and landed on compressed-air thrusters at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site on Thursday night, two weeks after weather pushed the original 1 October date. Tesla put the car’s 0-60 mph time at 0.81 seconds during a run at the event, and Elon Musk told the crowd, “We enter production in 2028.”

That production date lands more than a decade after the Tesla Roadster was first shown in November 2017, against deliveries Tesla originally promised for 2020, a stretch covering at least eight separate schedule slips. No price was announced for any of the three versions.

The Car Cleared a Tesla Semi With Nobody Sitting in It

The wedge-shaped two-seater drove halfway up an inverted half-pipe, held to the surface by a vacuum fan system, then launched off upside down and used its thrusters to right itself before touching down on the tarmac. It followed that by jumping over several Teslas, including a Semi, inverting again and landing on thrusters, according to Reuters, which had reporters at the site. Nobody was inside the Tesla Roadster for either run.

Musk framed the hardware as a joint product, calling it “the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX engineers working closely together,” and posting afterward that “turns out the future does have flying cars.” Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, was blunter on stage, saying “flying cars are real.” Tesla said on X that the Tesla Roadster thruster system generates four to five times the force the tires can put down.

Roadster is a true pilot’s car: active aerodynamics, a multi-mode suction system & cold-gas thrusters

Exterior
– Concealed headlights, full-length taillight & flush-mounted surfaces for a minimalist, highly technical form

– Super light wheels w/ thin spokes that reinforce structural strength when earthbound

– Ano White paint brings an aerospace-derived finish w/ UV & cryogenic protection, electrostatic dissipation & corrosion resistance

– Gold Glazed tinted glass mimicking the copper coating of spacesuit visors, w/ subtle titanium accents

— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026

Tesla Roadster Range Came In at Half What Musk Promised in 2017

Moravy put Tesla Roadster range above 300 miles across all three versions. The 2017 car was pitched at 620 miles from a 200 kWh pack, so the production target has been cut by more than half while the delivery window moved out by eight years. Top speed also came down, from above 250 mph in the original pitch to 230 mph now, though Musk said the production car should “crack halfway to the speed of sound.”

The acceleration claim went the other way, and by a margin wide enough to carry the headline. The 0.81-second measured run beats the 1.9 seconds promised in 2017 comfortably, and Tesla’s own trim figures go further still, with Performance under 1.6 seconds, Thrust under 0.9 seconds and the single-seat Rocket under 0.59 seconds.

Investor Takeaway

Ives and Gerber Read the Reveal as a Step Toward Folding SpaceX Into Tesla

Analysts spent Friday morning on the corporate question rather than on the car itself. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management posted two takeaways on X, the first that the event “was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers,” and the second that “Elon can’t wait to bring $TSLA and $SPCX together.”

Tesla bull Dan Ives said the Tesla Roadster reveal “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way” and pointed to shared propulsion and control hardware as evidence the two could run as one engineering platform, per Benzinga. He had already put the odds of a combination by 2027 at 80% in September, and Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki called a merger “obvious” after the demo.

Neither stock managed to hold the enthusiasm through the first hour of Friday trading. Tesla stock traded up 4.79% premarket at $379.80 and had given almost all of it back by late morning, changing hands near $364.47 against Thursday’s $362.44 close, with the session high of $370.58 stalling a fraction below the $370.59 close that followed the Q3 delivery beat. SPCX went further, turning a 2.33% premarket gain into a 1.37% loss at $146.58. Third quarter results land on 21 October, after deliveries came in 2.1% below last year while still beating consensus, and the reveal has to survive that print before it counts for anything on the tape.

Deposits Run $50,000 for Performance and $250,000 for Thrust With No Price Attached

Tesla posted per-trim deposits on the Tesla Roadster reservation page shortly after the event ended. Performance takes $50,000, Thrust takes $250,000 and includes the acceleration thrusters, and the single-seat Rocket with the full flight system is invite only, with no figure published for it, Fox Business reported. That replaces the flat structure from September’s reopening, which took a $5,000 refundable card payment followed by a $45,000 wire within ten days, and which Tesla said left reservations unfinished “until the wire transfer payment is received.”

None of this tells a prospective buyer what the Tesla Roadster will actually cost. Tesla quoted a $200,000 base price in 2017 and has said since that it is still working out which options, features and hardware the car will carry. Anyone wiring $250,000 for a Thrust is committing a quarter of a million dollars against a vehicle with no published price, no road-legality ruling for the thruster-equipped versions and a production start more than two years out.

Investor Takeaway