Hey, I'm Ed Llo with Motor Trend and we are on our way to see the new Tesla Roadster. We're out here at McGregor, Texas on our way into a SpaceX facility, but apparently got some top secret stuff going on because they've requested that we wear an eye mask on the way in, so we don't see what's happening out there. So, here we go. Let's go check out the Tesla Roadster.
Wow. Very different. Very, very different from the previous Roadster. Holy smokes. What are those? What are those four things on the back? That's going to be the first question.
Man, I got all sorts of questions. Okay, so we're here at McGregor, Texas at a SpaceX facility. We were blindfolded on the way in. They just pulled the sheet on the new Tesla Roadster. Blown away. Just seen it. I literally just walked around it. No idea what's going on. So, we're going to bring on an expert to talk about what this vehicle is, what it means for the brand. Let's bring on friend of Motor Trend, my friend Franz Von Holzhausen, chief designer.
Good to see you. Welcome. Congrats.
I'm blown away. It's not what I expected. It's not what you guys have shown previously in any shape.
I think we're kind of good at that, right?
Yes. You're very good at surprising people. But tell me, talk, what is it? What do we look at? This is the new Roadster. Okay.
And it's going to come in a variety of configurations. So, I can walk you through what those are. We have a Roadster, and that's kind of the standard mode, right? And then there's going to be a performance Roadster, which builds progressively with some added elements. And then on top of that, we have a thrust version. And we can get into details on what that means and how we accomplish that. And then we have a rocket version. But I think you see right away we've evolved the design.
And we've continued on our idea of clean, simple, elegant lines, flowing surfaces. And there's so much performance in this car, yet we've hidden it. So, the car transfigures, transforms, and we can get into how that works and what that means as well.
All right, let's do it. Okay, so that's a lot. So, let's start with the base. Let's start with Roadster. Okay.
This is the Roadster and all of the other variants, the performance, the thrust, and the rocket. They start here and they build up.
Okay, so what we're looking at here is the thrust version.
As we get to the rear, we'll see why.
But base Roadster is an all-new clean sheet design.
Okay. No real carryover from the previous concept Roadsters that you've shown.
Yeah, it's a new bespoke battery pack, 115-hour pack.
Rear-wheel drive. We wanted this to be the last best driver's car. So, we kind of reached for the stars and we thought about what makes a great driving experience. So on the Roadster you have a rear-wheel drive twin motor with the same battery pack, 115 kWh pack.
And then as you build up, in the performance you add a fan suction system.
And trying to get to the limit of physics on grip because tires give up at some point.
Okay. So we have an adjustable, basically the suction system configures at speed for downforce effects, etc., and acceleration. And then from there you build on top of that, you add a COPV for the thrust version.
And a carbon overwrapped pressure vessel.
Carbon overwrapped pressure vessel, COPV, okay.
It's a cold gas thrust system.
It's 200 L compressed air, 10,000 PSI in the rear.
Exiting out of four nozzles.
And that improves your acceleration. You can do it as a thrust or a burst. And then the final version is you add on top of that another 400 L COPV into the passenger seat and you have a rocket. Literally, you add six extra nozzles. So now you can defy gravity.
And all at the core, at the Roadster level, last best driver's car. At the rocket end, what are you trying to achieve?
I think we're trying to achieve something that nobody's done. Make a flying car. They said it was impossible. We've done a lot of impossible things at Tesla. You know, people said semis couldn't exist, that autonomy couldn't exist. And I think from a Roadster perspective, you know, the original Roadster was really the proof of concept. It proved that EVs could be fun, viable, go the distance, and a joy to drive, right? And we've just continued to build on that. And we want Roadster to continue to be the proving ground for kind of the impossible in a way. And we wanted to deliver, like I said, the best driving car we absolutely could.
So, will it fly? Is that what you're saying? It's going to fly.
Like, explain how, how far off the ground? Like, what are we talking about?
I think you'll see tomorrow. So, I think let's, I would save that for...
Okay.
Heat.
Woo.
I mean, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen that before. I saw the four nozzles in the back for the COPV. You have an additional six where?
So there'll be four aiming down behind the wheels.
And then two for yaw control in the front firing sideways.
Plus the four that are on the back.
The yaw control would be left middle, middle of the car or right in here. And how long? Okay, this is still mind scrambling, right? When we talk about thrust, that is for pure straight line acceleration, correct?
Standing start like 0 to 60, quarter mile.
Is it also for top speed?
Can also be for boost. Yeah.
For boost. Okay. What are the claims then for the Roadster, for the thrust version? What 0 to 60 time are we thinking?
So we're targeting, and we see about 0.8...
Under 1 second. Under a second.
So safely under 1 second to 60 mph.
Yeah. Okay. Quarter mile claim?
Quarter mile deferred to the experts.
Off camera. We'll share a sheet, but it'll be a record.
Okay. So some record-breaking quarter mile. Is there a performance claim for the top speed?
Which we think nobody's gotten to yet.
And you will need the COPV to achieve that.
Okay. Sorry, I'm going backwards. Base car, Roadster, 0 to 60. What are we thinking?
Just over a second, which would still be a record.
Quarter mile, we'll probably get top speed, that'll be in the 220-ish...
220-ish range. Okay. Any other high-performance claims like handling or...
I think as we step into the performance, that's where the handling comes in. The base Roadster will have the active aero system and in performance we add the fan for suction and that just takes the lateral component level even higher.
Okay. I got my head, my head's swimming right now with questions to ask you. So, the thrust version, how does the cold... so many questions. Yeah. How do the cold gas thrusters work?
So it's a system based off of SpaceX system. So, we've employed a lot of the SpaceX engineers that developed the system for the Starship and rockets. And it's basically compressed nitrogen and then you release it. So, we've got the vessel which holds up to 10,000 PSI, which is insane. And then we have two valves that release so we can kind of control dynamically forward thrust if we need to. And you can just fill this up anywhere. We go.
You can't fill it up anywhere.
We're working on the system that allows for filling it up.
It's obviously like an off-road use only.
Track use or... and it's about, it's several seconds of propulsion.
Okay. And these are like carbon fiber tanks or something.
Okay. All right. Well, actually, let's open up the car. Let's start. Yeah, let's start walking around and maybe showing me some of the front. I mean, let's just talk about the front. First of all, the styling is chef's kiss.
What are these headlights?
They pop down, which we can see magically. Okay, let's see how they... Oh, okay. Very cool.
So, in Cybertruck, we had incredibly slim headlights. And so we get the entire lighting system, low beam, high beam, built into this slim piece. And the idea of the front was to keep the car incredibly clean. And then we wanted to not add elements to it to create the performance. The performance is hidden underneath the skin and basically evolves. And same with the lighting system. So you saw the front end graphic super clean, right? And then we drop the covers for the lights.
And this light bar, this is essentially the DRL, right? Okay. And these are your federally mandated...
In the front as well. They're built into here. And we have the repeaters on the side.
And then inside the mouth, there's active aero. So we have wings that deploy and we can show all the active aero right now because I think it's a whole transfigure of the car.
Yeah, I could see it. There's some active aero that's going to deploy here.
So, you'll notice we open up for airflow up over the top. Also good for cooling. Radiators in the front. There's wings down here that deploy. We have barge boards on the side. The fenders open up, subtle, but they help extract air out of the wheel well for high speed, keep the pressure down. And then a nice big wing in the back.
Nice big wing in the back.
Which is, you know, when it's tucked away, it's just part of the car, right? It's not a big FU wing off the back of the car thing, but the amount of performance that it provides is insane. And this is in a braking slash cornering mode. And then we've got a high-speed mode which lays the wing flat.
And it can be all automated or personalized as you're driving.
We'll show that. We'll take a look at the back from all of the different angles. Is this active aero system available on all vehicles on Roadster? Okay. So I was going to ask what that panel was. So is this a frunk or is this just no frunk?
No frunk. Okay. So, this opens up. This allows air to come up and the entire nose becomes basically a wing.
And we have this nice little removable panel here. That's your quick-release windshield wiper.
Currently not sharing, but... Okay. How does it come out?
You remove this and you plug in the windshield wiper, but we wanted to make it quick so you could take it off if you don't need it.
Oh, interesting. Okay. So, yeah. Where it doesn't rain, you don't need it. Okay. All right. Wow. This is...
You know, so when we were thinking about the car and the design of the car, knowing that we had this flight component to it and we had this amazing acceleration and just top performance in general, we were looking inspirationally at what are things that do something similar. SR-71 came to mind. It's the most extreme plane, and you know, the F-35 with its hover capability and also amazing performance. Then we were thinking about the Lotus from a famous movie that also transforms and does something else. It's flying underwater, but you know, there's an aesthetic there about the car being really beautiful and then transforming to meet its purpose and the needs of its performance. So that in mind, you know, led to the language changing from where we were and, you know, also looking at where we've come with Cybertruck and Cybercab and the clean palette that we're using in the surface language. So minimal line, you know, beautiful twisting surface and you can see this really strong character line developing out of the front and into the rear quarter.
This twisting surface on top that leads you to the back of the car. And just clean body side.
I mean this in the best way possible. It doesn't, and I said when I first saw it, it doesn't look like really anything else on the road, but the closest thing I would say it has a little bit of Lamborghini in it in the proportions, cab forward, the windshield, definitely sort of the triangular sort of roughly the shape of the headlights and very strongly in this, the way this character line kind of goes to the back. But then everything else, and that's, it's a great car to be compared to I think. But of course, all the active aero is phenomenal.
No mirrors. You're using...
No mirrors. So, we have cameras on the side repeaters and we have, you know, for regulatory purposes, we do have mirrors for the US market.
Okay. So, I saw, I noticed a nose camera.
Super FSD. This will FSD.
This will do a limited version of FSD.
Okay. Why is that? Is it, were the cameras not in the right places or hard...
The extreme windshield and also I think the idea of just being a performance driving car is the character we wanted to push for.
Okay. Interesting. That's probably, that'll be the biggest I think reaction. Oh, they built a car that doesn't have that signature technology.
It's there. The camera and the hardware is there. Yeah.
Wow. Okay. Well, the back seems to be where things are at.
Yeah. Back is the business end. Let's go see the business end of the car.
Well, first of all, I noticed a bunch of carbon fiber underneath this wing. What's it made of?
So, this is, you know, still a prototype. The car is made out of carbon fiber, but we're working through what the material story will be for each version of the car. Slightly different as we progress up the range.
Mixed. Okay. So, could Roadster be like CFRP?
Okay. All right. So, not ready to talk about the body, but let's talk about the business end here. Again...
Yeah, this is the diffuser of the car, and this is where the noticeable changes are without opening up the aerodynamic elements of the car. So on the thrust version you have the four nozzles and below that are the four fans for the suction system that you would get on the performance.
And then you would add the four down nozzles behind each wheel and the two yaw thrusters into the rocket version.
Okay. So again, just for people following along home, barely holding on like I am, the base configuration of the Roadster, same body, same everything, same aero, and we're going to go through that in a little bit. Claim 0 to 60, just over 1 second, rear drive, two motor.
The next level up is performance. And performance means improved handling.
Improved handling with the...
With the addition of these fans.
So you add the fans into the lower diffuser and you have an adjustable suction system where there's fences on the left and right and then independent ones front and rear. So we can raise at higher speeds the front and rear fence and allow for basically a ducted system using the fans to like charge the air underneath the car.
So, the fans are, because I see the orientation and they're basically sucking the air out.
They're sucking air out this direction and you have basically channels or fences.
Fences on either side of the car as well.
It's basically like in car racing, you want to ground effect as much as possible.
And it's able to basically create suction throughout the entire length of the chassis of the vehicle. It's basically a suction system about the size of the battery pack.
Okay. And these are obviously electric.
So you can create downforce at 0 mph.
Whereas the active aero that we see deploying really starts to work 50, 60, 70 mph.
Is it enough that the car could drive a significant amount? Could it drive upside down?
That's possibly drive upside down.
All right. So which leads me to, do you have a ballpark on the weight?
We're trying to get under 1,700 kgs.
Under 1,700 kg. Okay. So under...
So that is the performance version. Improved handling via the addition of four electrically driven fans. Correct. The level up on that is the thrust version, which are these. Can I touch them? Four nozzles. Yeah. They're made of...
Some exotic metal, Inconel, titanium, something like that.
Something exotic metal. Okay. And this leads to a COPV, right?
Which we can show you. Do you want to see it?
So now you see why there's no rear seats.
Without the system, this is just a luggage space.
Holy. But this is a 200 L...
Carbon fiber wrapped tank with, like I said, actuator valves on either side. So we have variable thrust and, you know, we're using parts from Optimus and stuff for the...
Being repurposed from Optimus robot.
It looks like suspension. It is not.
