Elon Musk has never been one for modest promises, and the saga of the new Tesla Roadster continues to prove it. The long-delayed second-generation supercar, first shown off back in 2017, has apparently added yet another party trick to its already outlandish spec sheet: the ability to fly. Or at least hover, briefly, in a manner that sounds more at home in a Bond film than a car showroom.

It's the kind of claim that would sink most credibility, but when it comes from the man behind SpaceX, it carries a touch more weight than it otherwise might. Musk has previously teased that the Roadster would come with an optional "SpaceX package" — a set of cold gas thrusters borrowed, at least in spirit, from rocket technology, designed to improve acceleration, braking and cornering by firing bursts of compressed air. It was always a throwaway, almost cheeky aside, but one that has clearly stuck in the public imagination, and now appears to be edging closer to reality, or at least closer to being talked about again.

The idea of a road car with thruster-assisted dynamics sounds absurd, but so did a reusable orbital rocket booster landing itself on a drone ship a decade ago. Musk's track record of turning science-fiction concepts into functioning hardware, even if the timelines slip wildly along the way, means nobody in the industry dismisses these claims outright anymore. The new Roadster itself was supposed to arrive years ago, originally slated for production not long after its unveiling, with Musk promising performance figures that would embarrass hypercars costing several times as much. Those targets have come and gone without an actual production car materialising, and the Roadster has become something of a running joke among enthusiasts who have watched its release date shift again and again.

Still, the renewed chatter about flight-adjacent capability suggests Tesla, or at least Musk personally, hasn't given up on making the Roadster the most outrageous production car ever conceived. Whether "flying" ends up meaning genuine lift-off, a dramatic jump, or simply a very enthusiastic hover a few inches off the tarmac remains to be seen. Details on how such a system would actually work, what it would cost, or when buyers might get to try it for themselves are, as ever with this car, in short supply.

For now, the new Roadster remains more legend than reality, a car defined as much by its promises as by anything it has actually done. But if there is one certainty in the world of Elon Musk, it's that the promises keep getting bigger.

Source: PistonHeads

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