Image: Tesla
The next-generation Tesla Roadster might actually show up this month, and the demonstration attached to it is both stranger and smaller than what Musk has been promising for the better part of a decade.
According to The Information, Tesla is planning to show the car as early as this month at SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, with a stunt where the Roadster lifts off the ground using the thruster package known internally as A71.
The car will be operated remotely with nobody inside, and spectators are being kept several hundred yards back because the SpaceX-developed cold gas thrusters are loud enough to damage eardrums. The vehicle doing the stunt isn’t street legal either.
The original routine had the car racing up a magnetised ramp, driving upside down, righting itself and then hovering, but Musk cut it back after reviewing it, leaving just the lift-off.
Tesla first showed the prototype in November 2017 with production promised for 2020, and Musk has moved the timeline at least eight times since, including picking April 1, 2026 at the November 2025 shareholder meeting and openly saying the date gave him “deniability.” Production has since slid to 2027 or 2028.
The hype has been building again for about a week, starting when Musk replied to a post on August 12 complaining that society got AI instead of flying cars with four words: “You will get flying cars.” TSLA rose 1.3% in pre-market trading on the report, a rare good-news catalyst for a stock that has shed nearly a quarter of its value in 2026.
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