A reworked version of the Roadster, fitted with onboard thruster technology, was put on display by Tesla at SpaceX's McGregor, Texas site. During the showcase, the car rolled up a curved ramp, rotated through the air, and touched down with the help of thruster technology built by SpaceX.

During the stunt, the vehicle executed a barrel roll across a row of Tesla products laid out on the ground, among them the automaker's passenger electric cars, its Semi Truck, and the Cybertruck.

Planned for a 2028 production launch, the updated Roadster carries a claimed zero-to-100 km/h sprint time of one second — a figure that would place it roughly four times quicker off the line than its predecessor managed. Manufacturing of the first-generation Roadster came to an end during 2012.

Speaking at the gathering, Musk outlined a propulsion setup built around what he called an "advanced ultra-high pressure air tank" — a pressurised reservoir feeding ten separate nozzles and holding roughly 250 kilograms of compressed air. Musk has stated that the tank's design allows it to replenish its charge on its own, without drawing on any propellant. According to Musk, a compressed-air reservoir built into the Roadster would deploy on demand, leaving the car free to perform those manoeuvres whenever the driver chose.

Production of the thruster-fitted Roadster is set to remain a limited run, with a road-legal variant absent from any announced plans. Rules governing vehicles built to travel both on roads and through the air have yet to take clear shape in a large number of places around the world.

Licensing rules drawn up by American regulators around the middle of the last decade called for operators of flying cars to hold two distinct credentials — one covering ground travel and a separate one for airspace use. One comparable case is the flying-car prototype built by Klein Vision — the AirCar — which cleared an airworthiness review conducted by aviation authorities in Slovakia during 2022. Under the terms set out in that announcement, a valid pilot's licence became a prerequisite for anyone intending to take the controls, the manufacturer confirmed.

Musk said he was uncertain whether the vehicle would be street-legal in every jurisdiction, while also noting it was designed to operate as a road-going car. David Thomas, who holds a content marketing director role at software firm CDK Global, called the design a notable engineering accomplishment. Thomas acknowledged that the case for it was difficult to dispute, while also raising a practical question about refuelling infrastructure — noting that public access points for that type of fuel remain unclear. He added that obtaining insurance coverage for it would face the same obstacles.

George Agathangelou, who serves as General Manager and Executive Director at Cyprus-headquartered financial services firm Teroxx, put forward a further set of commercial considerations — among them whether pilots would require aviation-grade certification, how liability arrangements would be allocated across parties, and what airspace restrictions would mean in practice — while also noting, by way of illustration, that explaining to an insurer a manoeuvre involving flight over another vehicle rather than a conventional collision would present a novel challenge for policyholders.

Other automakers ventured into aerial vehicle development well before Tesla turned its attention to that space. Mounted beneath the bodywork of the Speirling — an all-electric hypercar that McMurtry, a British manufacturer, brought to market in 2021 — an onboard suction system draws air downward to generate downforce, a departure from the aerodynamic surfaces that most performance cars rely on and the technical approach that came to define the vehicle's engineering identity. The point at which Tesla's approach diverges from rival systems lies in how vacuum-based suction and independently powered thrusters are combined to operate together.

A live audience attended the Texas demonstration at Musk's direction, with the in-person turnout serving as a counter to any suggestion that the footage had been digitally fabricated. A review from Raman Technology, a Chinese logistics firm, described the vehicle as one that draws on aerospace engineering principles within an electric-vehicle platform.