Tesla’s Design Chief Drives the Roadster to the Petersen’s 4-Day Show

Image: Sawyer Merritt/X

Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen drove the next-generation Roadster to a dinner at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Sunday night, during the car’s four-day public display in Los Angeles. Once he arrived, the team opened up the back of the car so guests could see the pressure vessel behind the seats.

Video from the evening, shared on X by Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt at 5:19 PM PT on October 25, shows von Holzhausen pulling up with the dihedral doors swinging open. A photo from the same post shows the opened rear, with a large carbon-wrapped tank set inside the car.

Franz pulling up to the Petersen dinner in the new Tesla Roadster.

Love the dihedral doors. They popped the rear so everyone could look at the COPV.

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 25, 2026

COPV stands for composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same kind of high-pressure tank SpaceX flies on its rockets. In the Roadster, it stores the gas for the cold-gas thrusters Tesla says can boost the car’s acceleration and handling. Tesla engineering chief Lars Moravy walked through how the fans, wings and thrusters work shortly after the reveal, and Tesla’s official interface video shows a thruster readout of 5,500 PSI in track mode.

Getting a look at that tank in person is part of why the Petersen showing has drawn crowds. The museum is showing the same car Tesla unveiled on October 14 in its main lobby from October 24 to 27.

Interest in the specs has stayed high since then. A Tesla press kit recently showed the Roadster’s Performance trim tops out at 210 mph, and Tesla quotes 0 to 60 mph in 0.59 seconds for the top Rocket version.

Would you want to see the Roadster’s thruster hardware for yourself before ordering one?