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Elon Musk is back on his rambling about the Tesla Roadster being able to “fly” and claims a demo is coming by the end of the year.
But we’ve heard it before…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan’s podcast today.
They didn’t discuss Tesla much during the 3-hour-long podcast. But Musk did try to sell Rogan on the Cybertruck for about 5 minutes, and then Rogan asked if the new Roadster is still happening.
Musk said yes and that Tesla is “getting close” to demonstrating a new version of the Roadster.
Tesla stopped producing the first-gen Roadster, its first car, in 2012, and unveiled the next-gen Roadster in 2017.
It was supposed to go into production in 2020, but it has been delayed every year since.
Lately, there has been some chatter about the new Tesla supercar, as Musk again claimed to have a new demo for it by the end of the year, and the automaker began hiring a battery manufacturing engineer for a specific new “Roadster battery.”
In the podcast, Musk mainly reiterated plans for an “unforgettable” demo by the end of the year and then rambled about the new Roadster being able to fly:
My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. If Peter wants a flying car we should should be able to buy one.
Rogan then asked whether he meant it would actually be able to fly, and Musk said he would have to wait for the demo.
Musk added:
Look, I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy, crazy technology we got in this car. Crazy technology. Crazy crazy.
He added:
Is it even a car? It looks like a car. Let’s just put it this way. It’s crazier than anything James Bond. If you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.
Shortly after unveiling the next-gen Roadster in 2017, Musk discussed adding a “SpaceX package” with a cold-air thruster to the vehicle – boosting downforce and acceleration, as well as the capacity to “hover” or “fly”.
It’s unclear if he is still talking about the same thing here.
The CEO did say that Tesla is still aiming to do a demonstration by the end of the year.
Something relevant here is that Tesla filed a patent for a new fan-car-like system with fans in the car’s side skirts.
It looks something like this:
There are ways to use this to generate a vacuum effect beneath the vehicle and increase downforce.
In the patent, Tesla says it could automate the system to achieve different performance benefits. For example, you could reverse the air to possibly hover, giving enough power.
Electrek’s Take
As usual these days, Elon is rambling and not making much sense. Rogan is there thinking that Musk is being sly because he doesn’t want to reveal too much ahead of the demonstration, but The CEO is actually being vague because he knows that what he is talking about has little to do with a “flying car.”.
When Thiel talked about a “flying car,” he meant a personal passenger vehicle that you can drive on the road but can also take off and cover proper distances in the air. This is the stuff of sci-fi that some eVOTL aircraft are bringing closer to reality today, but not in the sense of a regular DOT-approved passenger car that can also meaningfully fly.
Does anyone believe that this is what Elon is talking about here?
There’s simply no way that an all-electric road-approved car can do that today. Now, can Tesla add other technologies, such as cold-air thrusters or fans, to the new Roadster to enable it to jump into the air and even hover for a few seconds?
Sure, that’s a possibility, but it’s going to be nowhere near the capabilities that people think about when they think of a flying car.
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