The one with the actual rocket engine is not being sold to the public and Tesla website explicitly states it's not legal to drive it on public roads. It's mostly just a cool demo/prototype and I'm sure there will be privately run tracks that let people drive one.
The generally available car will have cold-gas thrusters which boost acceleration but is nothing like what was demo'd.
Teslas already have very strict (annoyingly strict) gating keeping specific functionality off of public roads (Summon). The drag mode thruster-assisted boost will probably leverage that. I also imagine that cameras on the car would stop it from being engaged if it detects humans in its firing area even when not on public roads.
The flying trim will never be sold to general consumers. Even the rear-thruster trim is currently listed at a $250,000 pre-order fee, which is a deposit for a fraction of the full cost of the car. Final cost will be over $1M. Any of the thruster variants will be extremely rare; like, the one guy in your city that has one will show it off at car shows twice a year, McLaren P1, level of rare.
And it's sure going to increase the blast radius when these get into a collision. Even if you can't fire the thrusters, that pressurized tank can't be safe.
After Elon almost died in 2000 when he lost control of his McClaren I wonder if the real reason for these thrusters isn't actually to recover when controlling this beast proves too much for the driver and it starts to spin out or accidentally launches into the air.
One of my friends commutes exclusively on FSD in this Tesla. He even purchased a device on Alibaba that disables the attention checks. He spends most of his time doomscrolling on this phone or napping when the car drives itself.
The only time he takes over is in a very tight garage where you need to drive really close to walls and FSD freaks out a bit.
I'm not condoning his behavior, but it tells me that FSD if "mostly works" for normal applications.
When you get into an accident with another car, the explosion of that 10 kPSI tank behind your seat. will make sure you are the coffee. You know...Engineering...
On the bright side, we're going to find out if extremely high pressure explosions can put out lithium ion battery fires. I vote no, but it'll likely remove any nearby debris/combustible material/organic matter/pink mist out of the combustion area.
Musk really is the master of fraud. Twitter gets bought by Space X to conceal the massive loss in valuation, Tesla gets pumped with endless "we'll have self-driving cars next year", for 10+ years... now that the Tesla bubble is finally popping he needs to dump it on the Space X/Twitter shareholders, so we get this demo of a thing that will never hit the road. Bag holders beware, Musk's masterpiece of market manipulation is about to execute with the merger of all his lies.
No, he bought it because he was contractually obliged to do so even after he tried to wriggle out of it.
I mean this isn't even ancient history, it only happened in 2022. He sent three termination notifications before it was determined that he had no grounds to refuse to buy.
Why Musk would spend probably tens of millions of dollars on this prototype which clearly will never be drivable on roads. One explanation is he is a trillionaire and the 14 year old in him thinks it would simply be cool to do it.
I think there is a more rational explanation. Tesla sales have slowed, other companies are catching up, and if it weren't for import issues, Chinese cars would be eating Tesla's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet Tesla is trading at a 330 P/E and Musk has to do something to make it seem like Tesla is still light-years ahead of everyone else and just wait, that 330 P/E will be justified any quarter now. Just like shooting a roadster into deep space was just a PR stunt, this is a PR stunt to boost the brand with no actual market relevance.
You missed my distinction -- I said that the Chinese companies (like BYD) would eat Tesla's lunch except for they aren't in the US market. The other companies which Tesla does compete with have largely caught up and in some ways surpassed Tesla.
Can't wait for these things to endanger my family's life on some Colorado mountain highways. If the suction works at speed, people are gonna drive even more recklessly.
The reality of EVs is that they all provide more or less identical driving experience - immense amounts of speed in straight lines and pure control around corners. But you can't really make something nimble or chuckable when it weighs 1.5 tons.
(Calling it a "roadster" is cute, but this has nothing in common with a Boxster or Miata. If anything, the ICE analogue would be muscle cars.)
Because there are no real unique driving characteristics, the only engineering you can compete with is raw speed or price. That and crazy gimmicks.
You should go look up the weight of a 911, Boxter, or Miata. And then, I suspect, you will not return here to reply to this comment. You'll invent some other reason why EVs can't be "nimble" or whatever, because it can't be your worldview that's wrong, it has to be the world.
That wasn't what was demonstrated, so therefore it doesn't exist. With the past dishonest publicity stunts done before, Tesla has earned this extra level of cynicism.
I always think people like you only follow Tesla and think everyone is stupid.
Why do you ignore all the other companies capable of doing this?
Just because other manufacturere don't put hardware in every car and let pay people for tech they can't use for years, doesn't mean these companies don't have the tech.
Nvidia has the tech, BMW has the tech, Waymo has the tech.
And while a Cybertaxi is still not allowed on german streets, Waymo is coming to munich...
You are free to think whatever ignorant thoughts about "people like me". I follow the whole field quite a bit, so I know what I'm saying when I say FSD has no real competition. For someone with a surface level image like you, it might look like there's a lot, but they are like Via to Intel. Or Google+ to Facebook.
No one else has the combination for affordability, custom silicon, deep hardware integration, market fit, manufacturing, and vertical integration like Tesla. Some people have some of the parts. Like NVIDIA. or Waymo. Or Comma.ai. But no one is even close to being in the same ballpark in ALL the areas required, and that has no easy fixes.
EU being corrupt and regulating themselves to the stone age is sad, but only makes them less relevant for the world of tomorrow.
I genuinely didn't believe they'd ever do more than use cold gas thrusters for a lame boost effect, if at all. Happy to admit I was wrong, that was cool.
If Doc Brown's time machine was real and posted here, HN would be complaining that it's noisy, unimpressive, not street legal, uninsurable, and attacking Brown's personal character because he's a dangerous nutcase.
Well this isn't real so that's not a very good analogy. I also don't think Doc Brown (who's also not real) was famous for committing fraud and lying habitually to manipulate the market.
Maybe it makes for a closer analogy. Neither the time machine or the flying car are real, but we react to the "inventors" differently. We're not haters. We just have taste.
The time machine actually accomplishes something. I fail to see what this accomplishes other than a very cool circus stunt. Straight out of fast and furious. Which is great and all, but not a production car.
Yes, Elon Musk and Doc Brown are really, really comparable. Great metaphor. Who can forget when Doc Brown famously stole a bunch of government data? Or tried, numerous times, to overthrow democracy? Or bought a heavily used social media site to turn it into a propaganda box?
What a well-thought out comparison. You've definitely got something, here.
I wonder if Musk is entering the brain rot phase, and Tesla will decline from now on. After all, this is something Tesla doesn't need, a second dud after the Cybertruck. I'm sure the decline will take some time though.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 254 ms ] threadPlenty of ways to maim/kill people in traditional cars already and I doubt this will be the most common one in roadsters.
The generally available car will have cold-gas thrusters which boost acceleration but is nothing like what was demo'd.
The flying trim will never be sold to general consumers. Even the rear-thruster trim is currently listed at a $250,000 pre-order fee, which is a deposit for a fraction of the full cost of the car. Final cost will be over $1M. Any of the thruster variants will be extremely rare; like, the one guy in your city that has one will show it off at car shows twice a year, McLaren P1, level of rare.
still tries to murder passengers jumping across traffic at shadows
good luck with anything Musk, you are the beta tester, if you die they'll debug it, eventually
The only time he takes over is in a very tight garage where you need to drive really close to walls and FSD freaks out a bit.
I'm not condoning his behavior, but it tells me that FSD if "mostly works" for normal applications.
They're typically used to affix your beer to the steering wheel of your boat.
I mean this isn't even ancient history, it only happened in 2022. He sent three termination notifications before it was determined that he had no grounds to refuse to buy.
I think there is a more rational explanation. Tesla sales have slowed, other companies are catching up, and if it weren't for import issues, Chinese cars would be eating Tesla's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet Tesla is trading at a 330 P/E and Musk has to do something to make it seem like Tesla is still light-years ahead of everyone else and just wait, that 330 P/E will be justified any quarter now. Just like shooting a roadster into deep space was just a PR stunt, this is a PR stunt to boost the brand with no actual market relevance.
At this point it's not clear that there's anything other than a 14 year old in him. A greedy, sociopathic 14 year old.
Catching up? BYD has already surpassed Tesla and looks like the gap is going to continue to grow.
The thrusters were able to cushion a fall.
That seems useful in ruining the ending of Thelma and Louise, but isn’t really a flying car.
I think this is pretty unique demonstration for something that theoretically may be street legal one day.
(Calling it a "roadster" is cute, but this has nothing in common with a Boxster or Miata. If anything, the ICE analogue would be muscle cars.)
Because there are no real unique driving characteristics, the only engineering you can compete with is raw speed or price. That and crazy gimmicks.
FSD has no real competition in its capability and market fit.
Why do you ignore all the other companies capable of doing this?
Just because other manufacturere don't put hardware in every car and let pay people for tech they can't use for years, doesn't mean these companies don't have the tech.
Nvidia has the tech, BMW has the tech, Waymo has the tech.
And while a Cybertaxi is still not allowed on german streets, Waymo is coming to munich...
No one else has the combination for affordability, custom silicon, deep hardware integration, market fit, manufacturing, and vertical integration like Tesla. Some people have some of the parts. Like NVIDIA. or Waymo. Or Comma.ai. But no one is even close to being in the same ballpark in ALL the areas required, and that has no easy fixes.
EU being corrupt and regulating themselves to the stone age is sad, but only makes them less relevant for the world of tomorrow.
(still not buying a tesla thooughbeit)
Not sure there would be a distinction.
What a well-thought out comparison. You've definitely got something, here.
(To stop masking and start ‘musking?’)