On October 15, 2026, US time, Elon Musk showed the new Tesla Roadster at an event in Texas near a SpaceX site. It was streamed on Tesla's account on X. For a reader in Türkiye it was already the night of October 16: the first press reports carry that date.
What was shown
According to CBS News and TechCrunch, the car drove up a ramp that curled so the vehicle ended up upside down, left its edge, and rolled in mid-air to land on its wheels. TechCrunch also reports that the Roadster used its thrusters to clear a row of Tesla vehicles. That comes from one outlet, so we attribute it.
What Musk said
"Flying cars are real," he told the audience. He also said success is "not guaranteed" but that it "will probably work." These are Musk's own assessments, not independent confirmation that production cars will fly.
Production
Musk said series production would begin in 2028. No price was announced. We report the date as a company statement rather than an established fact: Tesla has been postponing this model for years.
Regulators
The US Federal Aviation Administration told CBS News the vehicle does not meet its definition of an aircraft. CBS said it had no clear answer on which agency would oversee such a vehicle. According to CBS, Tesla's website says the flying version is not approved for public roads.
What we leave out
Tesla's stated figures for acceleration, range and speed, the number of thrusters and the deposit amounts are not included. The outlets differ on details, and we could not read Tesla's own page: the site refused our request. We will return to these figures once a primary source confirms them.
Photos: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc. (official Tesla Gallery). The images are used as editorial illustration under Tesla's terms.
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Sources: TechCrunch, October 15–16, 2026; CBS News, October 16, 2026. Tesla's own page (tesla.com/roadster) and Axios did not open for the newsroom (HTTP 403) and were not used as sources.