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Okay, so. wow. So last night, Tesla had one of maybe the. most. insane product demos of all time. It had a completely redesigned, brand new. cyber-looking. car, then it had a car driving up a wall, then an upside-down car, then a flying car, then a car that jumps and does a kickflip, and then a 0.6-second. 0 to 60. And yet realistically, a lot of this stuff was. a distraction from the facts and figures that we got. the next morning, today, on the actual Tesla Roadster itself. So I guess if part of my job for the last decade has been watching and attending these tech events and deciphering. what's real versus. what you should pay attention to, what is fluff, then I figured I should
definitely do this one. So RIP to the 2020 Tesla Roadster. You'll be missed. even though you never existed. But yeah, we've got a lot to talk about. Also, I hope the weather holds up 'cause it looks like it may rain at some point, but my fingers are crossed. So anyway, yeah, a lot of people. after last night. were freaking out and rightfully so. 'cause it was. pretty insane. A lot of people were also very skeptical and rightfully so, because it was pretty insane. But I think as there is with a lot of this stuff, there was actually. a bit of nuance to it. I think a good amount of what we saw last night at the Tesla Roadster event was, it was actually really cool.
It was stuff that a lot of car people are at least interested in from an engineering perspective and were looking forward to. And then a lot of other parts of it. were completely insane. that. I don't think we will ever see in person. So at the event itself, they started by just re-unveiling the Tesla Roadster. It's completely redesigned. It looks nothing like the one that was originally on stage back in 2017. And this thing looks like some sort of a. cyberified interpretation of a Lamborghini, maybe a Murciélago, if I'm being generous. It's very minimal, very. angular.
It's got these. triangle shapes, these slot headlights. The doors go up now instead of going out. There's a headlight bar at the front and a taillight bar at the back, very Cybertruck and modern EV. And then the back just has a lot going on: a huge moving wing, it has exhaust tips, which might seem a little crazy on an electric car, but that will make a lot more sense in a second. Me personally, I don't really love this new design, at least my first impression. I actually think the old car was quite pretty, even though it never existed.
I thought that design was really cool and I was looking forward to it. This one, eh, some parts of it yes, some parts of it no. It's gonna take some time to grow on me, and trust me, it'll have time to grow on me. But then there's all the other capabilities. to talk about. So first thing it does is start to drive. up a wall slowly. It just approaches it and it starts to get a more and more impossible angle, and then it just drives straight up a wall until. it's completely upside down. It's stuck to this ramp like 60 feet in the air and is producing over 4,000 kilograms of downforce while not driving, not moving.
This is basically revealing that it's a fan car, which we have seen before, but we'll get to that in a second. But then it goes back up that ramp again, and then the second time it goes up, it literally vaults off the top and does this insane flip maneuver, spinning around and then landing on the ground tires down. So clearly. there are. thrusters all around the car pointed in all directions that are powerful enough to move the entire car in space, and then there's enough compressed air somewhere as a source to get the car to flip and then land softly and drive away. This insane, obviously. So first of all, this was an. autonomous demo.
This is a pre-scripted- there's no real human in the car, but it's a pre-scripted sort of robotic demo, probably for safety purposes. Think of it kind of like a. Boston Dynamics robot. It's capable of that, but this is like your best-case scenario and like the coolest thing they could possibly make it do. But then yeah, a lot of the thoughts you're having in your head about like, is this even possible? Is this legal? Why would I want a car to do this? All of those are, I think, perfectly reasonable thoughts to have.
It's also a pretty insane, radical, never-before-seen flying. car demo. that left a lot of questions unanswered. So. both things can be true. But really the strange thing to me is that this event, hosted by Tesla, doesn't really answer most of these important questions for people curious about the product. But then the next morning, today, we get at least 3 different videos from MotorTrend and Hagerty and Top Gear that combined with the newly refreshed Tesla website. have helped us understand a lot more about what's actually happening here. So let's just break it down. What they didn't say at the event is there are 4 versions of this Roadster. There's the base, the Performance, the Thrust, and. Rocket specs.
So the base car just sounds like, you know, the basic EV by itself with none of the frills, none of the party tricks. It's not even mentioned on the website. This is just what I heard from Franz in the MotorTrend video. But he said there's a base one that has none of the extra stuff. Then the Performance version of the Roadster. is this car with a fan system. for downforce. So no cold gas thrusters yet, but the fan car is already. an absolutely insane idea. If you've been in the car world for a little bit, you've probably already heard about this little project, this little car called. the McMurtry Spéirling. And that thing. is. a single-seater,
fully electric car with this whole fan system underneath and behind it. And it is absolutely insane. Obviously, the amount of grip you have while driving is super important to how well the car can handle, right? So for many years, we've seen this steady improvement. in sports cars, just improving aerodynamically because as the car reaches higher speeds, you have tons of air passing over the car and it can redirect that air up or down to push the car down into the ground. This is all about getting more grip. So instead of losing traction, pushing the car down in the ground helps keep it stuck so you can actually turn more aggressively. and not lose grip.
You ever put your hand out the window on the highway like this and the air moves your hand up and down? Same idea. The car has different shaped pieces that help push the car down, but that only works at higher speeds, right? So if you want that same level of downforce at lower speeds, the idea of a fan car or the fan system is to put a fan that's connected. to some low-pressure area underneath the car that sucks the air out from under the car, creates a low-pressure zone so that the air above the car pushes it down. So that is what the McMurtry Spéirling is doing. It literally drops down a skirt underneath the car to create a little vacuum-sealed area, and it spins a fan at the back of the car. at a ridiculously high RPM. And that
duct system basically keeps the car firmly planted to the ground. It generates more downforce. than the actual weight of the car, which is why, yes, they've already done the driving upside down stunt. Maybe it didn't get as much PR, but. that's how much force this system generates. So it's. unbelievably capable on a track. There's a bunch of videos of it smoking the fastest high-downforce track cars in the world. around low-speed corners, literally driving around a GT3 RS, just absolutely nuts. That extra downforce makes the biggest difference at the lowest speeds. So from a launch from 0 to 60, it can put. all of its power down immediately, which is over 1,000 horsepower. And the McMurtry does 0 to 60 miles an hour
in 1.4 seconds. Just shoots out in 1.4 seconds. It's crazy. And so there's videos of this thing going to different tracks and basically demolishing every lap record. everywhere they go because this thing finds grip. in places that other cars don't. It is genuinely one of the coolest science fair project cars that the world has ever seen. I kind of still want to get to drive one at one point. That'd be awesome. And so the Tesla Roadster inherits this fan system, and so it also inherits a 1.6-second. 0 to 60, which is nuts. And I'm I'm on the fence about whether or not. this could be street legal. I mean, I guess the law is the law.
It's either legal or it isn't. But like there are lots of roads. where you probably would not want to use this system. because. there are potholes. and bumps and imperfections and things like that. So the skirts on the Spéirling. and the Roadster are made from like rubber and they're flexible and they're easily replaceable when they inevitably get worn out from dragging along the ground. But still, like the car has fans at the back, it literally hoovers up anything that's on the road under the car. And so it needs filters down there so large items don't get caught up in the fans. And the smaller pieces like little bits of gravel actually do make it through the fan system and shoot out the back. So if you are driving behind a fan
car. while the fan is spinning, lots of air and lots of little debris literally shooting out the back of it. So the McMurtry, I don't think is street legal with the fans running, but they also have said they're working on a street legal version. very curious about that. It also depends on where the laws are, where you're driving. Tesla is calling this Performance trim. "road ready" in their language. So it seems like they're ready to have this car or this version, this trim of the car be street legal. If it's not, you can expect to see it like GPS locked to just tracks or. drag strips and stuff like that. But then there's the next version of the trim, which is called "Thrust." That version of the car will have a fan system. already.
And then it will also add thrusters to the back of the car. So at the back of the Roadster, you see these 4 fans. at the bottom. That's the suction system. Then the 4 bigger exhaust pipes at the top, that is the thrust system. And that's where it starts to get crazy because. those pipes. are attached to. a. 200-liter carbon-overlaid pressure vessel. When it's full, it's carrying 100+. kilograms of pressurized nitrogen. at 10,000 PSI right behind the driver's head, this little ball. And that is insane. It's just objectively. completely insane. But that is how they combined with the fan system are able to achieve a sub-1-second 0 to 60 in that car. 'Cause you're
you're past the limit of traction on tires at this point. You're just, you're strapping yourself to a little mini rocket and just, just, just gone. They showed demo videos of this at the event. Tons of compressed nitrogen coming out the back. It's pulling a couple of Gs and yeah, literally hits 60 miles an hour before it goes the length of a driveway. Some quick back-of-the-napkin math: that's like 3 Gs, 3 lateral Gs, which is crazy to experience in a car. Most cars, the limit of grip on tires is typically like 1.2, maybe 1.3 Gs. So that's nuts. And you know, roller coasters do 3 Gs. It's not like.
dangerous to your body, but it's just holding your arms up to the steering wheel will be 3 times harder than it normally would be. This one, again, not sure about. street legalness. You know, at the event they did this demo. hundreds of feet away from people and gave them hearing protection because those thrusters are incredibly loud on top of the already loud fans. There are definitely laws about how loud cars are allowed to be in certain places to pass regulations and actually be shipped. And so that will come into factor here.
There's also like, there's lots of cars that like if you stand right behind a, you know, a quad exhaust, like a C8 Corvette and they rev it, like it'll burn your legs. So there's lots of crazy stuff happening in the sports car world already. But actually what I'm most concerned about is crash test. safety. Like cold gas thrusters and massive, carbon-overlaid compressed air canisters. It's great with rockets, I understand that, but rockets don't get crash safety tested like cars because if a rocket crashes, it's kind of-. that's kind of it, right?
Um, but what happens in the event of a safety incident when you have a massive balloon of 10,000 PSI compressed air next to your head? I just, I don't know what the plan is there. But anyway, the last spec, the last. promised spec the. "Rocket" spec. And so this levels up again. So. it still has the fans at the bottom, it still has the thrusters at the back, but it adds. 6 more thrusters around the car facing various directions. And it also adds one. massive 400-liter compressed air tank in. like the passenger seat area. So it becomes a one-seater. But anyway, all this extra compressed gas and all this extra thrusting will allow
the party trick that we saw from the event, like jumping or doing a. massive kickflip over a 40-foot section of road for some reason, all of that stuff. Oh, and it'll do a 0 to 60. in 0.6 seconds, which sounds painful. This pretty clearly. never going to be street legal. And I mean, that much is already clear on their website. They've already said it's not approved for public road use. But you can also only get. this car via. invite, which is a perfect little segmentation on their website to avoid. the liability of ever having to sell this to. a group outside of a very, very, very
limited number of people. And I think. that's why this event felt so weird to me because they basically went all in. on this insane demo, which to their credit, it was an insane demo. And there was a ton of engineering that went behind it, probably many, many months. and months of trial and error. I mean, imagine being told by your boss you need to make a fan. car that can drive up the side of a building, but also. upside down and then fly off a wall and land on its wheels. Like, that's just a stupid amount of work that essentially amounts to a party trick. Like a really, crazy, futuristic, insane engineering party trick. But is it even a party trick?
Like, can you do this in your driveway? Are you allowed to. have your car take off and fly 40 feet? Like, where. are you. even. able to do this? There's some talk about whether or not it was a real full-weight car that did the demo. And I mean, I don't know, if I was in charge, I'd be pulling some strings, like using a smaller battery and just doing anything I can to make sure it doesn't go horribly wrong. But that almost doesn't even matter. I think the. craziness of how extreme. that this event. was and how all in they went on this. crazy party trick was both figuratively. and literally smoke and mirrors in front of
abandoning the old Roadster that spent some unknown amount of time in development and is now just never coming out. Now, this one is supposed to be 2028. That's the new promise. That's what they said on stage. But then it kind of just. ended. Like, there wasn't really much more information after the crazy demos. And if you didn't watch anything else, then you'd miss a lot of other interesting engineering about the Roadster that started to show up in the videos this morning on things like Top Gear and the MotorTrend video that I talked about. Like, did you know this new Roadster's supposed to be. all. carbon fiber body panels and weigh. under 1,700 kilograms?
Like that, that's. 1,700 kilograms is less than this car! This car is a gas car, has a gas tank. Batteries are typically incredibly heavy and EVs are typically incredibly heavy. This car weighs more somehow. than their promised Roadster. Did you know that the new Roadster is supposed to have. just. rear-wheel drive? Usually these cars are incredibly fast because they're all-wheel drive. And the Roadster is just rear-wheel drive for the driving engagement. And so all of the 1,300 horsepower and 1,400 Newton-meters of torque. come from the new dual motors
at the rear, which are also now smaller and more power-dense than even what we saw in Plaid. The range. went. way down. from 600 miles to just. a promised 300+, but they also talked about 500-kilowatt supercharging, which would be the fastest we've seen in the US at the new V4 Superchargers, 15. to 80%. charge in 10 minutes. Did you know what they're promising with this Roadster? 25 to 30 minutes of full-on. maximum power, max attack track mode driving. That's also pretty rare. for an EV. Typically, thermals and thermal management get in the way of that, but you could do legitimately multiple laps before you have to
recharge, but then recharge quickly. It's a little more reasonable to expect this to be a car that actually sees a track someday. There's a whole bunch of active aero bits. There's a charging port behind the rear wing. There is a movable pedal box. There's a double wishbone suspension, brake-by-wire, steer wire. The windows are tinted with a gold accent color to mimic a spacesuit visor. Like, there's just so much going on with this car. So like, if you're gonna do a new unveiling for a car that you've apparently spent a bunch of development time and. resources
hours on, I would've personally preferred if you showed that instead of spending. so much time. on. just the party trick and then. no extra information. But instead, here we are. all now distracted by the, like, rocket thruster stuff and the, like, at one point they said it was gonna go half the speed of sound, which come on, like it's, I'm pretty sure it's not gonna do that. The thrust mode is over in to 5 seconds and then the tank is empty. So it's basically one-time use before you have to refill it, which in the Hagerty video they said would take 6 to 7 hours to refill. And the rocket thing, you know, doing a kickflip,
incredible demo, you gotta admit. If literally any other company did that demo, we'd all be shocked. But. aside from being a really cool engineering demo, that to me doesn't have any other connection to, like, real-world performance benefit. The fan stuff, it does. Obviously, more downforce and more grip equals. better cornering and handling and faster lap times. It makes perfect sense. That's why we've been seeing this on other cars. Even the thrusters at the back, you could say, okay, that's like a cool straight-line. drag race. gimmick, one-time thing. Fine.
You could make an argument for. safety. in extreme braking events for, like, putting the thrusters on other parts of the car, but the kickflip over something. and the. jumping down off of the. ramp, I mean, that, it's just distracting. And let's be real, do you really want the. people that you see on the highway every day when you commute with cars that are able to jump when they don't have a pilot's license? So. yeah, I guess marketing is marketing, and they have, in fact, abandoned the car. that they initially had spent some number of years out of the past 9 years developing.
I don't know how I would feel. if I had been. in for some amount of money this entire time. and just saw the car completely change like that. But hey, to their credit, the referral reward free Roadster is still in my account. and with the updated picture. So. I guess maybe. that is still happening. Maybe I'm still getting it. I don't know. Get subscribed to see that. I will keep you guys. posted. But I guess that actually brings us to the last question, which is just, will they actually-this is the big question they ended with. They're gonna ship in 2028 is what they, of course they promised it on stage.
Will they actually ship this thing by 2028? Starting to sound familiar. So. the flying one. with the rocket one, no. That there's just no way. you or I. will ever be able to buy this car. Of course, it's conveniently invite-only. We might as well ignore this ever becoming a real product. The base one, the fan car one even, I can see that actually, yes, being possible. But at this point, I actually don't even think it matters. because. Tesla has proven to us by now. that the Roadster is by far their least important product. Like, McMurtry. has been putting in ton of public development work for this fan car idea. It doesn't surprise me one bit that.
Tesla can come in and sort of big-brother them and all the other fan car concepts that came before them and use their bigger bankroll to try to bring it to life. But we shouldn't ignore that there's a reason this. 2020 Roadster went. years and never actually came. out, never actually existed. It's because it doesn't make a difference to the company if it comes out or not. It makes no difference to their bottom line. It's so low volume. Matter of fact, they actually recently killed Model S. and Model X, which are very well-known cars, because they also weren't selling enough to make a difference to the bottom line.
They have priorities. like Model 3 and Model Y and the humanoid robot stuff they plan on in the future. You think they care about Roadster? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, Yeah, shame on me. I'm not gonna be holding my breath for this to suddenly become a priority. for them to. start picking things up and shipping this thing right on time. But this event, given how much everyone is talking about it, was clearly a successful. engineering exercise. and marketing stunt. It's really what it is. A few months of incredible engineering, demo that no one has. ever seen before. That's enough material to talk about Tesla for another few years.
I was actually just digging into my account to see. what was going on with the Roadster. There's a Tesla Roadster reservation agreement. There's a nice little bullet point, number four, that reads that you understand that the Roadster is still under development at the time you enter into this agreement, so we cannot guarantee when your vehicle will actually be delivered or if. it will be delivered. Very interesting. You know, I think the take from Henry Catchpole at the end of the. Hagerty video is actually really. fair, which is, you know, it seems like Tesla's realized that just
a really, really fast electric car doesn't really do it for people. anymore. Like, it's old news. We've seen that by now, and they already make Plaid, so-. or made Plaid. So they abandoned it and swapped it out for something that kind of does do it for some people anyway, which is the dream of a flying car. It's this fun idea, and it makes way more headlines. And even if they never ship the thing, then that successful engineering exercise is at least a spectacle that we can talk about as a marketing success. So yeah, thanks for watching. And for more car-focused videos and thoughts on cars, get subscribed to the Auto Focus channel. And if you do end up seeing a Tesla Roadster review, that's where it'll be.
Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.
