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August 12, 2025 – Tesla is preparing to finally show off its next-generation Roadster as early as this month, but the demonstration will be a far cry from the original vision. According to a new report from The Information (paywall), the company plans to have the car lift off the ground using SpaceX-developed cold gas thrusters at the rocket company’s test facility in McGregor, Texas. The catch: the vehicle will be operated remotely with no one inside, and spectators will be kept hundreds of yards away because the thrusters are loud enough to damage eardrums.
The demo represents a scaled-back version of what Tesla originally pitched internally. A few months ago, the plan involved a magnetized roller-coaster-style ramp, upside-down driving, and hovering. After previewing that concept to CEO Elon Musk, the company delayed the event and cut many of the more ambitious stunts. Musk has reportedly told staff that the demo will be difficult to pull off and could go wrong, but it will be entertaining either way.
The vehicle that Tesla will showcase is not a production car. It is a limited-edition, non-street-legal prototype that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Tesla has considered selling it to a small group of superfans through a program modeled on Ferrari’s XX Programme, where owners drive track-only cars under supervision. The company also experimented with a single-seat layout, placing a cold gas thruster where the passenger seat would normally go. As currently designed, a person cannot drive the car while the thrusters are firing because the noise is too intense.
The long road to the Roadster
The report sheds light on how the Roadster program evolved over the years. In 2022, two design teams inside Tesla pursued different approaches. One group considered building the Roadster on the Model S Plaid architecture, essentially a stretched version of the 2017 prototype. The other team started from scratch with an ultralight carbon fiber tub, typical of high-end hypercars. Musk chose the latter, telling staff to “do it correctly or not at all.” That decision killed the reuse of existing Tesla platform and pushed the company into building a true hypercar, requiring engineering expertise it lacked. Tesla subsequently hired engineers from Italy, including Stefan Nothdurfter, a former head of body engineering at Lamborghini, who has since left the company.
Design chief Franz von Holzhausen went through a phase inspired by the Lamborghini Countach, then later said he wanted the car to evoke the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane – which is where the internal code name “A71” comes from. By 2025, the design settled into a more conservative shape that drew from the Countach work, and Tesla built a running two-seat prototype with butterfly doors late last year. Von Holzhausen said last week that the Roadster is coming “very soon.”
The flying part shrunk along the way
“We started off thinking we were almost making an aircraft and ended up with something closer to hovering,” one person with knowledge of the program told The Information. The demo will take place at SpaceX’s rocket test site, and Tesla has not yet decided whether to stream it live or release edited footage afterward.
Meanwhile, the thousands of customers who placed reservations years ago are still waiting. Tesla took $50,000 deposits for the standard Roadster and $250,000 for the Founders Series back in 2017, and the company has delayed delivery at least eight times since. High-profile figures like Marques Brownlee and Sam Altman have publicly said they canceled their orders. Musk has joked about the “long-suffering” reservation holders at shareholder meetings. The only tangible progress outsiders have seen in recent months is a new Roadster trademark filing in May 2025.
Industry perspective
The latest report adds to the narrative that Tesla’s product announcements often outpace actual deliveries. The company’s much-touted Robotaxi event earlier this year similarly offered a vision without a clear timeline. Critics argue that the Roadster demo, while impressive engineering, does little for the hundreds of customers who paid in full a decade ago. The limited edition that will be shown off can’t be driven on public roads, can’t be operated with the thrusters active, and will cost more than most homes. It’s more of a showcase for Musk’s ability to push technical boundaries than a product available to consumers.
As Tesla continues to navigate production challenges and shifting priorities, the Roadster remains a symbol of ambition and delays. Whether this month’s demo reignites excitement or further frustrates loyalists remains to be seen.
