alt Hacker NewsOk, so it actually flies. That was unexpected.
It's an incredible engineering achievement to build in massive fans and rocket engines into a high performance car. It's truly wild.
It's being sold in two modes. One with cold gas (no combustion) seemingly just for extra forwards acceleration (no flying) and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".
Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.
Even just the cold gas variant seems like a nightmare for production, there's a high pressure COPV in that thing and that's gonna make crashes much more.. exciting, and Tesla doesn't have a great record anyways. But very few of these are ever getting sold anyways.
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> and one with real combustion rocket engines, the latter was in the video and is "invite only".
I don't think they'll sell these, at all in the future. No way they'll hound out actual rocket engines to en users. Too much IP in there.
It is concept art and a bunch of promises.
It's not being sold in any configuration. It's a hype toy to keep a vibe based valuation valuable.
> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.
You could say the same thing about the Cybertruck.
that "cold gas" is actually just regular air.
it fills its tanks with air from the atmosphere.
Presumably this isn't an actual roadster but a motor in a hollow car
The body was hollowed out
The website lists three modes, which all have the fan but differ in thrusters. The variants are: no thrusters (thus no COPV), acceleration-only thrusters, and flying thrusters. The flying one has the disclaimer "Note: Not approved for public road use." OTOH the acceleration-only thrusters may be street legal. However, I expect that the COPV will be kept empty (thus not dangerous) unless you select a special "launch mode".
Hopefully there will also be a warning siren while it is pressurized. "Dangerous enough to need a warning siren" seems like a plus for the target market, honestly.
> and that's gonna make crashes much more.. exciting
It's not like they care about lives. After all Musk throttled Starlink in Ukraine and that resulted in many civilian deaths. Anyone buying this is supporting this behaviour.
Invite only, so just fireworks for gullible investors as usual.
This will be the justification for merging SpaceX and Tesla.
"Integrating SpaceX thruster tech is absolutely essential to Tesla in the future!"
This is so absurd, and reproduces the idea of flying cars from sci-fi and comic books of 1960s and 1970s so directly! And can attach to a wall or ceiling, for bonus points! I think it will be met with a huge demand from well-off people who dreamed about such cars in their childhood. (If it delivers on all these promises, of course.)
>there's a high pressure COPV in that thing and that's gonna make crashes much more.. exciting
It's probably going to be like the titan submersible of cars.
> Ok, so it actually flies. That was unexpected.
That was actually not unexpected. Joe Rogan 2404 [1]. He warned Rogan that the demonstration would be completely "unforgettable, whether it’s good or bad"
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Un incredible achievement that betters humanity. Amazing
> I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.
It’s an Apple Vision Pro.
They’ll do fine over the decade.
> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model.
If this ships, it will deliver a fraction of what's promised here. My money is on the "flying" version being delayed repeatedly until it's quietly cancelled. Anyone remember the fast battery change stations[1]?
> Wild that they devoted so much effort to an economically completely infeasible model. I wonder if the combustion version will even break 3 figures sales.
It's staggering to consider how many resources we've diverted from people who could use them into building this novelty.
If ever there was a sign of a society of decadence in decline, it's that the most powerful person on earth is free to create toys like this exclusively for others in the ruling class.
I think to many, and equally as many will argue the counter to this point, and I am not speaking to the validity either way, but I think Elon felt even if not available to the public, his reputation was on the line. He has done amazing things thus far, but also made lying and exageration the norm. He had to come through with 'a flying car'. Credit to him, he essentially did, available or not.
Feel like a rich people toy slash marketing stunt for Tesla.
Impressive engineering but utterly impractical. There are semi-practical flying car designs around folding wings or quad rotors (basically a big car sized drone) and the reason we don’t see them has more to do with safety, traffic control, and energy cost. Aircraft, like rockets, tend to get more energy efficient with size, so tiny flying machines are power wasters.
anything still takes this conman serious? Must be bots..
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> Tesla doesn't have a great record anyways.
Of what, being the safest production car on the road that you can buy?