Tesla is reportedly planning to demo the SpaceX-thruster-equipped Roadster this month at SpaceX's McGregor, Texas test site — remotely operated, with nobody inside. After nearly nine years and at least eight missed deadlines, here's what's actually confirmed and what still isn't.
Tesla is reportedly gearing up to demonstrate the long-delayed, SpaceX-thruster-equipped version of the new Roadster as soon as this month, according to The Information, with details corroborated by Electrek, Carscoops, and Reuters. The plan: a remotely operated Roadster, with nobody inside, briefly lifting off the ground using cold-gas thrusters at SpaceX's rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas. It's the most concrete sign of life the project has shown in years — and also a scaled-back version of what Elon Musk originally described.
The demo itself is reportedly modest compared to what was originally teased: the Roadster will be remotely operated, with SpaceX-developed cold-gas thrusters — internally code-named "A71," a nod to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane — used to lift the car briefly off the ground. Nobody will be in the car while the thrusters fire; people familiar with the plans say the thrusters are loud enough to risk hearing damage, and spectators are expected to be kept several hundred yards back. It's not yet known whether Tesla will livestream the event or release edited footage afterward.
When Musk first pitched the SpaceX-thruster Roadster concept internally, the ambitions were considerably wilder: the car would race up a magnetized ramp, flip upside down, right itself mid-air using its thrusters, and hover. According to people familiar with the project, that plan has been substantially cut back.
"We started off thinking we were almost making an aircraft and ended up with something closer to hovering."
— Person familiar with the Roadster program, speaking to The InformationEven the scaled-down version won't be something Roadster buyers can actually use. People familiar with Tesla's plans say the thruster-equipped car won't be street legal, and it's likely not safe — or even physically possible — for anyone to be inside the car while the thrusters are firing. Tesla has reportedly discussed selling a small number of thruster-equipped cars to superfans through a program modeled on Ferrari's XX Programme, where owners can only drive the cars at track events under factory supervision, never on public roads. Pricing for that version has been informally discussed in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially over $1 million.
Musk unveiled the second-generation Roadster in November 2017, promising a 2020 production start, 1.9-second 0-60 mph acceleration, a 250-plus mph top speed, and 620 miles of range — figures Tesla's Roadster reservation page reportedly still lists today, despite none of it having shipped. Tesla collected $50,000 refundable deposits for the standard car and $250,000 for a "Founders Series" version; some early depositors, including YouTuber Marques Brownlee and OpenAI's Sam Altman, have since said publicly they canceled their reservations.
The car has quietly changed shape more than once behind the scenes. Around 2022, Tesla was reportedly weighing two different engineering paths — one based on a stretched version of the Model S Plaid platform, the other a from-scratch carbon-fiber-tub hypercar architecture more like something from Bugatti or Koenigsegg. Musk chose the harder path, reportedly telling the team to "do it correctly or not at all," and the Model S Plaid-based option was dropped. Tesla brought in hypercar engineering talent, including Stefan Nothdurfter, previously head of body engineering at Lamborghini, who has since left the company.
Design direction shifted too — styling reportedly passed through a Lamborghini Countach-inspired phase favored by design chief Franz von Holzhausen, then moved toward evoking the SR-71 Blackbird at Musk's direction, which is where the "A71" thruster code name reportedly comes from. By 2025, the design had settled into a more restrained shape drawing from that Countach-influenced work, and Tesla is said to have built a running two-seat prototype with butterfly doors late last year. Von Holzhausen said publicly earlier this month that the Roadster is coming "very soon." Tesla also filed new Roadster-related trademarks in May 2026 — described by people tracking the program as the closest thing to hard evidence of progress that anyone outside the company has seen in years.
| Roadster milestone | Status |
|---|---|
| Original unveiling (prototype shown) | November 2017 |
| Promised production start | 2020 (missed) |
| Design finalized | Reportedly settled by 2025 |
| Running prototype built | Reportedly late 2025 |
| New trademarks filed | May 2026 |
| SpaceX thruster demo (no driver) | Reportedly planned this month |
| Public sale / street-legal deliveries | Not yet confirmed |
The bottom line: A remotely operated demo at a SpaceX test site is a real, visible step after years of near-total silence on the Roadster — but it's worth being precise about what it actually proves. It's not a driver taking off in a flying car; it's an unmanned car briefly lifting off the ground under remote control, with the thruster hardware reportedly reserved for a small, non-street-legal, track-only batch rather than the base car most reservation holders are waiting on. Whether that translates into an actual delivery date for the standard Roadster remains the same open question it's been for years.
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