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Franz Von holzhausen
Chief Designer, Tesla

New Tesla Roadster: It’s Finally Here… And It Flies! | 4K

📅 Oct 16, 2026 Top Gear 49 MIN 8116 VIEWS 245 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
This is the new Tesla Roadster – and in its ultimate guise, it will fly! There are four versions, from a base Roadster, via a Performance model that produces over 1340hp, to a Thrust version that boasts cold-gas thrusters, up to a limited-edition Rocket iteration that Tesla promises will fly! The performance at that top end of the Roadster family is nuts, with a sub-1sec 0-60mph time (maybe even under 0.59sec!) and a top speed of 330mph! We spent a couple of hours with this groundbreaking sports car the day before it was unveiled, in the company of Tesla’s Chief Designer, Franz von Holzhausen...

What Franz Von holzhausen said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's chief designer, unveiled the production Tesla Roadster after a nine-year development, confirming it will be built in Texas starting in 2028. He detailed a bespoke rear-wheel-drive platform with dual motors at the rear axle producing over 1,000 kW (1,500 hp), targeting a weight under 1,700 kg. The car features a high-voltage 800-1,000V battery with 310-320 miles of range and 500 kW charging capability. Von Holzhausen described four variants: base, performance, thrust, and rocket, with the thrust version using a 200-liter COPV cold-gas system for 0-60 mph in 0.85 seconds. He emphasized the car's active aero, including deployable skirts and fans for ground effect, and confirmed a 214 mph top speed with a 330 mph version in development. The interior uses steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, and manual seats to save weight.

Key takeaways

  1. Production Roadster will be built in Texas starting in 2028, with four variants: base, performance, thrust, and rocket.
  2. Dual rear motors deliver over 1,000 kW (1,500 hp) with a target weight under 1,700 kg.
  3. Thrust version uses a 200-liter COPV cold-gas system for 0-60 mph in 0.85 seconds, with fill times currently 2-6 hours.
  4. Top speed is 214 mph for now, with a 330 mph version in development.
  5. Battery offers 310-320 miles of range and charges from 15-85% in 10 minutes.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
1,500 horsepower Power output from dual rear motors metric 6:06
under 1,700 kg Target curb weight for the base Roadster metric 5:09
310-320 miles Estimated driving range metric 13:27
0.85 seconds 0-60 mph time with thrust system metric 22:28
200 liters COPV tank capacity in thrust version metric 20:38
10,000 PSI Maximum pressure of the COPV tank metric 20:38
214 mph Current top speed metric 26:29
330 mph Target top speed for a future version commitment 26:29
15-85% in 10 minutes Charging time target commitment 13:27

Chapters

  1. 0:00Reveal and design philosophy
  2. 1:59Powertrain and performance specs
  3. 11:44Battery and charging
  4. 14:51Ground effect and aero systems
  5. 20:08Thrust and rocket variants
  6. 28:41Active aero and exterior details
  7. 34:04Interior and controls
  8. 42:15Legacy and context

Questions asked in this interview

12
  1. 0:11Show me. Should we do it?
  2. 4:21It's quite punchy though, isn't it?
  3. 6:42So, how are you controlling all that horsepower and torque if it's only rear-wheel drive?
  4. 12:52Are you ending up with more like a capacitor then?
  5. 15:27do you two have this fight all the time?
  6. 21:17And are there only thrusters on the back?
  7. 26:24I mean, I love this. So, top speed is what?
  8. 29:26And then is that actual and could you use that as an air of flatness?
  9. 32:39When you go to the shops, you don't feel like an... right?
  10. 34:24Unlike most electric sports cars, right?
  11. 37:14Does the base car feel naturalistic?
  12. 38:09And how would I engage like thrust then?
Franz Von Holzhausen 0:00 ↗
Okay. Where? You're not going to be throwing me down some stairs.
Interviewer 0:02 ↗
No, we'll stop you right here. Okay. Thanks for wearing that. Whenever you're ready.
Franz Von Holzhausen 0:07 ↗
Okay. I'm going to take the blindfold off.
Interviewer 0:11 ↗
Oh, okay. Already I see different lines. Yeah. Come on. Show me. Should we do it? Pull it. Yeah. Pull it. Here we go. Oh my word. Oh my word. That's completely different to anything we've already seen. Yes. So this, it's almost got an ultra futuristic look to it.
Franz Von Holzhausen 0:38 ↗
Kind of the idea. [laughter]
Interviewer 0:46 ↗
This is the Tesla Roadster. The actual Tesla Roadster production car. And it might be one of the most intense vehicles ever conceived, even if the gestation has been interminable. But yes, intense. Or at least some of the optional extras are. So stick with me because today we'll be all about the genius brains behind it. Thrust from zero to 60 in under a second. Cold air thrusters and ground effect. And no one thought you could ever make a flying car. And the OG Roadster for a little bit of context. Side note, we came to see the Roadster before it was revealed to the world and it was shrouded in secrecy to the point that I was blindfolded even getting to the vehicle. Okay, let's just start at the beginning cuz I'm still actually just taking it in. This is a completely different thing to what I was expecting. What's happened here?
Franz Von Holzhausen 1:40 ↗
Nine years. [laughter] Yeah, nearly a decade. There's the original Roadster, the middle Roadster nine years ago, and then this, the new Roadster, and this one we're going to build.
Interviewer 1:50 ↗
You've kind of successfully managed to deflect all of the attention because this is a genuine surprise. So, what are the basic stats of this car?
Franz Von Holzhausen 1:59 ↗
We started looking at where we wanted Roadster to go, right? And it obviously in nine years had to progress from the performance metrics, etc. And we also started looking at this idea of flight and how that would change the shape of the car. Okay. And you look at Cybertruck, what we've just done, Cybercab, the language that we're progressing is, you know, distilling down, getting more simple, clean, and Roadster needed to follow that suit. It felt already like yesterday's Teslas when we were adhering to the nine-year-old design. So we wanted to progress it.
Interviewer 2:41 ↗
So it was the future of nine years ago. Yeah. This has got to be the future of 2026 and beyond. Exactly.
Franz Von Holzhausen 2:46 ↗
And from the engineering side, a lot of what we put in that car, we actually ended up putting in the Model S Plaid. Like actually the first Plaid that ever existed, we ripped the motors out of that car and put it into a Model S that became the Plaid. And so like the tri-motor system, the carbon-overlaid, you know, rotors, the carbon ceramic brakes, like even the, you know, track mode and things we had talked about developing went into Plaid. And it's like, well, now you kind of got to be a lot better than that. So...
Interviewer 3:17 ↗
Where did it go then? Because this, if you've had nine years of development throughout your processing, I can see Tesla in that. It's still got a Tesla vibe, but there were pretty high bars for what you were hoping to achieve for Roadster even back then. Yeah. So, this is going definitely in production like this? Yeah. Yeah. It's going to look like this? Yeah. The whole deal? Yeah. Yeah. And that's a proper production car. And you're going to build it where? In Texas. In Texas from 2027, right? 28, 28, 28. So, it's a little bit later, but this is the production car. Yeah. So, what have we got under here? Is it a completely new chassis or is it based on something else?
Franz Von Holzhausen 4:00 ↗
Yeah, it's completely new and bespoke just for this. You know, as our company has moved on and we've, you know, we were in Austin. I don't know where you flew in. Cybercabs are everywhere. The future of autonomous driving is here. Like, and it is on the cusp of going up. You know, really the task here was to make the last best driver's car. That's kind of a mantra I've been holding for a while and sort of stuck with the team.
Interviewer 4:21 ↗
It's quite punchy though, isn't it? I mean, they're truly the best on all the metrics. Like defy physics best. Yeah.
Franz Von Holzhausen 4:30 ↗
So, I mean, a couple of things to start out. The first thing that you can't see from looking at this, but you might tell from the proportions, is it's actually a rear-wheel-drive-only car.
Interviewer 4:39 ↗
Really? Yeah. So, is it dual motor?
Franz Von Holzhausen 4:42 ↗
It's dual motor at the rear axle.
Interviewer 4:44 ↗
Cuz all of the internet has said it's tri-motor, it's quad-motor. But isn't it more fun? There's something like amazing and visceral about the power coming out of the rear end and just shooting it, you know, for this. When you think of like a driver's car, which we wanted this to be, like... So is it more about excitement than pure performance? Does that mean you've turned your back on performance?
Franz Von Holzhausen 5:06 ↗
It gives you the ability to have both.
Interviewer 5:08 ↗
What's it made of?
Franz Von Holzhausen 5:09 ↗
So, I mean, there's a lot of different materials in here. Right now, this is like our alpha. We always build these out of carbon fiber, but it's like a hybrid structure. We're using the material where we need it. So, you know, we have aluminum in the fronts and like obviously the suspension bits, carbon ceramic brakes, the carbon areas of the tub, you have the glass, you have plastics where you need it. You know, still working out some of the body panels, but it's everything because we try to make it super lightweight. Because for me, like performance is power to weight, right? And so, we're trying to get it, you know, the team will kill me for saying this, but under 1,700 kilos. I want it to start at 1,600 because it's got to be the same weight as all the other performance cars out there, supercars. Like, you can't, if you're going to make it truly better, you can't go around with a 2,200-kilo electric vehicle and call it a fun car to drive. That's not going to be true.
Interviewer 5:55 ↗
So, if it's looking at being 1,700 kilos, how much power is it going to make? Are there different versions or is there any one? Yes. So, the base... I've got so many questions. [laughter]
Franz Von Holzhausen 6:06 ↗
I'll do the powertrain real quick. Um, so you know, a couple of things. So, it's two motors at the rear. Yeah. Like that, the performance vehicles and up will have super power-dense motors that are going to run on high voltage, 800 to 1,000 volts in that range, and we'll use cobalt steel in the lamination and stuff to really get power-dense. And that means that this car will have over, you know, 1,000 kilowatts of power, 1,500 horsepower, which is more than the Plaid had in three motors, but only in two. And the two motors sit at the rear axle, they're buttoned up against each other, they each have their own separate inverter with a planetary reduction to go out to each wheel independently.
Interviewer 6:42 ↗
So, how are you controlling all that horsepower and torque if it's only rear-wheel drive?
Franz Von Holzhausen 6:46 ↗
So, I mean, [clears throat] the braking system is a brake-by-wire system. We first implemented our brake-by-wire on Cybercab, just like you were talking about with design language. So, it's braking by retardation. And so, we obviously have torque vectoring at the rear which can help with yaw control. But then if we need to do like some more stability control, we have the brake power at the front. But there's some other cool stuff for stability that we'll get into in a bit.
Interviewer 7:08 ↗
Which sounds intriguing, but are there different versions that we need to know about? Is there a base?
Franz Von Holzhausen 7:15 ↗
There's a Roadster. There's a performance Roadster. There's a thrust version. We'll get into the details on that. And there's a rocket version.
Interviewer 7:24 ↗
So, four different variants, right? And they build from each other. They're going to build up. And is it just in horsepower or hardware or both? Yes, both. Yeah. Well, the results end up scaling down as you add the augments. So, I'm assuming they're pop-up headlights, pop-down headlights. Okay. Are they full headlights?
Franz Von Holzhausen 7:49 ↗
Yeah, this is the full headlight. So, you know, on the Cybertruck, we had one of the slimmest headlights on the market. It was about 20 mm tall. It sat down in the fascia. Um, these are a little bit less than that. And you have the full, um, you know, low beam and high beam up there. And then, you know, the joint effort between Franz and I and the teams that worked on it to get the light to project out of this like...
Interviewer 8:09 ↗
And being that low as well, being seemingly concave. Yeah, but you've kept that front graphic really super, super clean.
Franz Von Holzhausen 8:20 ↗
That was the idea. The whole car we tried to keep incredibly clean, and you'll see as we discuss the car, it transforms into its alter ego, but keeping the cleanliness and all the insane engineering development that's underneath the skin was, you know, part of that back-and-forth challenge that we were...
Interviewer 8:41 ↗
This feels like an edit, if you get what I mean. Like this could have had loads of bits and bobs, but we didn't feel like that was a true Tesla in the cleanliness of the design language that we've been progressing as a company.
Franz Von Holzhausen 8:58 ↗
All the cars we've ever made have, despite their ridiculous performance, never looked like, you know, giant rear-wing race-car-type things when they're in their form. And I think there's a magic in just a really pure, clean elegance, and then underneath that is insane performance.
Interviewer 9:20 ↗
But you're calling it a Roadster. It's not a roadster. Well, what is happening in this bit? What size wheels are they?
Franz Von Holzhausen 9:28 ↗
These are, well, they're split fitment front and rear. We got 295/30s at the front, 335/30s at the rear, and then a split tire or wheel diameter, 20/21, just to get the right balance. You know, even with low mass, you need grip. Um, we'll see with some features we show in a minute.
Interviewer 9:45 ↗
You're trying to sidestep grip. Yeah, that's weird. It's weird how very, very mid-engined graphic it's got from the side. Like it's almost Lotus-y in, you know, like if you got a white sheet, there's a movement through there that's like...
Franz Von Holzhausen 10:00 ↗
Just so happens [laughter] that was part of the inspiration, and we can show you a little bit of that inspiration right outside the door here because modern supercars have this kind of tight [clears throat] that energy in that front arch. If you recall, um, we had the submarine version, the Lotus, in our studio, but I thought that was... drawing inspiration from that.
Interviewer 10:23 ↗
I thought that was a bit of propaganda to try and... I can see it now, but I thought you were lying. No, [laughter] that's not... Back to your Roadster point. It's not a roadster. The roof's come out. These come out. So, it's a T-top. T-top, but you get the open-air feel. Conventional doors. Should we open? Yeah. Oh, so not conventional doors.
Franz Von Holzhausen 10:46 ↗
So, you may recall on the Cybercab, we kind of went with this, uh, you know, sort of butterfly-type door. Yeah. And we open it here, um, to really kind of fly into that sort of feeling that Franz was talking about where even the...
Interviewer 11:00 ↗
You got a butt pad to slide in. Exactly. You sit right here. It's a little saddle to get your ass in. Yeah. Then you twist. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never thought about that being a solution.
Franz Von Holzhausen 11:12 ↗
I think I sat on that thing like 30 times in the studio and I was like, I need a pad. I need a pad. But if you recall from the Roadster we showed previously, yeah, the middle, same concept. Yeah. Just evolved.
Interviewer 11:23 ↗
So it would be a 2+2. Let's not look at the interior cuz I want to talk about that later. So no heavy electric. So which bit lifts out? Is it this section? Yeah, that section there from the, you know, from the cant rail forward. Yeah. I still don't think that means it's a roadster, but the basic hardware is where it all starts.
Franz Von Holzhausen 11:44 ↗
We have the battery in the floor. Um, it's a higher voltage, you know, in the 800 to 1,000-volt range that we run our Cybertruck and Semis at. Yeah. To really get it to have a lot of throughput in terms of current and power. Um, with over a megawatt at the rear axle, we want to get it out and we want to get it out the whole time. So, um, we've evolved our batteries since then. We've built our in-house program. And one of the cool things about making your own batteries is you can make the cell exactly what you want it to be.
Interviewer 12:11 ↗
And what chemistry are they? And so it's still a lithium-ion nickel-based material. Yeah. But like it's a bespoke chemistry for high power throughput. So it's your new, the new... the new, the new, new... the new, new... like just for this program new. Oh, okay.
Franz Von Holzhausen 12:24 ↗
Um, because we think about high-volume cars, they don't have the same power requirements. They have longevity requirements, but they, you know, you don't need to be pulling out a kilowatt and then shoving a kilowatt... sorry, a megawatt. Keep saying kilowatt. [laughter] Yeah, I was going to say it's quite low at all the time. But we want to have it be a true driver's car. It's got to last. It's got to drive for, you know, a full transaction, sustain that power. And so we needed to change the cell to do that. And then we needed to change the whole battery architecture.
Interviewer 12:52 ↗
Are you ending up with more like a capacitor then? Something...
Franz Von Holzhausen 12:54 ↗
Not really. I mean, it's still a lithium-ion cell, but it, you know, we changed the architecture of it. So like to have more, you know, current throughput as I mentioned, but also to manage the thermals better. So the battery pack itself has, you know, cooling on both sides of the battery, has an aluminum top and bottom. No, left and right. Um, you know, our cylindrical cells usually have one cooling tube down the middle, and then to cool the other side of the cell, you have to kind of go across it. That's not very efficient if you want to keep the cells cooler. So we put cooling tubes on both sides.
Interviewer 13:25 ↗
If you were to drive it normally, what kind of range would it have?
Franz Von Holzhausen 13:27 ↗
It's about like 310, 320 miles in that range, which I think is absolutely reasonable and usable in a sports car. Like, you know, the original pitch for it being 1,000 km, 620 miles, it was kind of like, you don't need that for the weight you've got to carry, cuz no one's going to use it though. And so what we really did, this is also our fastest-charging battery. So like in order to get all that power out to the motor and add that thermal capacity, you get an added bonus, which is I can charge much faster. We're hoping to do, you know, 15 to 85 in 10 minutes.
Interviewer 13:57 ↗
So could you get a Semi charger and plug that into it? Well, that's an MCS. Uh, yeah, but if you got like the plug thing that goes on the end... but yeah, well, no. Uh, but like the megawatt charging...
Franz Von Holzhausen 14:10 ↗
Megawatt charging is on Semi primarily because we can distribute it across the massive pack. But on this one, we're going to, you know, using 800 volts with our Gen 4 superchargers, you know, we're able to pull, you know, over, uh, almost a megawatt, over 500 kW into the car.
Interviewer 14:25 ↗
But the car feel, that feels like a much more realistic... The weird thing I'm feeling already is this is a much more realistic, real, usable. It looks like a spaceship. It feels like a spaceship. Where's the spaceshippy bit? Because you're talking to me about it being... these are all rational things. Over 300 miles of range, rear-wheel drive, feels good to drive, lighter weight.
Franz Von Holzhausen 14:51 ↗
Yeah. You know, with all that power and like all that torque, like we also have to break the laws of physics. Um, because if you live in the world of grip that currently exists in sports cars on land, you're limited by the tire. Tires always... always the tire. The best tires in the world maybe can do 2 Gs. Most are 1.6, 1.8, something like that. We wanted to like take it one step beyond that. And so this car, uh, much in line with what you were talking about with the submarine car, has some fans in the back, right?
Interviewer 15:27 ↗
So what do the fans do? And how do you make a set of fans not look rubbish? Yeah. Well, you can... So you two have to have this... do you two have this fight all the time?
Franz Von Holzhausen 15:42 ↗
It's not a fight. It's like a camaraderie. Like we want... like I love cars. I always want... like when Franz wants to make them look cool, I'm right there with him like, 'Yep, that's better. We should do that.'
Interviewer 15:52 ↗
Hang on a minute. Does the entire back of the car move? Well, lots of parts. We'll get to that. Yeah, pretty much every panel moves. The car transforms. Like I was saying before, the car transforms. Keep saying bits. So we have this really clean kind of beautiful clean design, and then when you really need the extra performance, you get it. Downforce, etc. Well, let's have a look at the back. By the way, I really like that kind of almost long-tail feel. Yeah. Like an extension towards the rear. If you look at that profile, it looks like it should end there, but you've almost pulled that profile longer. Yeah, it's got a pretty long wheelbase. It's bigger than I thought. What's that wheelbase? 2825, 2.8 m. So, it's actually fairly roomy from the back of the front seats. Yeah. To the centerline of the rear wheels. Yeah. Well, it's got to have a trunk, you know.
So, to recap, in that wheelbase is a generous battery, which Tesla won't confirm at this point, with between 310 and 320 miles of range across the models. Two motors, both on the rear axle to give torque vectoring. The lightest, the basic Roadster, will likely be under 1,700 kg, and that's not bad. And they all get 500 kW charging for less than 15 minutes, 15 to 85%. But it gets wilder from here on in. Okay, so what do the fans actually do? Let's look at them first. Yeah, we'll show you where they are. And then... Okay, so these are not exhausts, I'm guessing. They're not exhausts. Where are the fans? Oh, there are the fans. But they're not just... Hang on a minute. So there's fans, but nozzles. Yeah. So what is it? What is it?
Franz Von Holzhausen 17:37 ↗
All right. So fans are part of a suction system. So ground effect, ground effect pulling the car down. So to really break the laws of physics, I say you have to live with the physics that exist here. So we have to break friction. And there's only a couple ways to do that. One, invent a rubber that has higher, you know, mu coefficients than one, which seems really implausible. Or just pull the car down with air. So what the fans do is we have side skirts, front and rear skirt roughly under the whole battery pack, sucks the car down and it can pull the car down.
Interviewer 18:11 ↗
Are they deployable or are they... Yeah, they're deployable. Oh, okay. So they're not a static skirt set. I mean, the Chaparral did a good job with the static skirts kind of went up and down. I mean, come on. Good, good stuff. Mercedes-AMG style vibes.
Franz Von Holzhausen 18:26 ↗
Definitely style, but like we went bigger, um, to get more downforce and to keep it more... and then, you know, we have the movable skirt to deal with road humps and things like that. But then we actually said, you know, that kind of fills in the void of aero before, you know, you start moving and the speed comes and then you can get downforce from like wings and barge boards and whatever. But so we fill in that void with the fan, but then when you're up at speed, we also wanted to use the fans. So then we lift up the front and rear skirts and we get like a high flow underneath the car, a proper venturi. Yeah. Sucking the air through it. So, you know, I joke a little bit, you get a little thrust, you know, out the back from the fans at that point.
Interviewer 19:04 ↗
It's almost like a ram-air effect though, right? And that's like kind of the dual-mode system we put in because whenever we put something in, we want to get all of the use out of it. Like everything out of it. So you've got side skirts and front and rear skirts. And then at speed those front and rear skirts lift up so you get a proper venturi effect on the underside of the car. So you're speeding the air up, correct, underneath the car and then pulling it out through these here. Why have you got nozzles though? Because you don't... they're not nozzles. I think that's... which, these ones or those ones? Is this you being aesthetic? Yes. [laughter] Yes. So does it need those? No. But we didn't want... I didn't want them to end in a cone or... Yeah. Just to be a bit blank. Yeah. But then, so you've got active fans pulling the car down, but what if you do hit a big bump? They can...
Franz Von Holzhausen 19:54 ↗
Yeah, they move up and down because they're deployable. They have sort of compliance, right? So they've got some suspension in there to do it. So then what's that? So these are because that's part of the augments that get us to a thrust version of the car.
Interviewer 20:08 ↗
Okay. So there's thrust and rocket at the top, right? So rocket is at the top, right? And then there's a thrust version of the car which has four nozzles and a big COPV sitting in the back of the car. Explain to me what a COPV is. Carbon-overwrapped pressure vessel. So this would be what, a two-seater? Two-seater. But then what's with a trunk? So talk to me about the... But when you get the thrust version, we fill the trunk. Crikey. Is this Ghostbusters? [laughter]
Franz Von Holzhausen 20:38 ↗
Well, you may have heard of the SpaceX package. We've been talking about it for a little bit. This is the, you know, COPV that Franz mentioned. This is a 200-liter COPV that can go up to about 10,000 PSI. So that would be like something in Falcon Heavy. Yeah. I mean, it's actually based off that. Correct. But, you know, on Earth we live by different rules. There's like gravity and wind resistance and air. And so, uh, we had to like upscale it a little bit. You know, in space you just need a little nudge and you get going. But here we needed, you know, it seemed appropriate to have like, since it's so much about flight, to have roughly the same thrust as a fighter jet.
Interviewer 21:17 ↗
Okay. So this is a big tank full of compressed air essentially. Compressed air. Have you got... is this inertial damping to stop that rotating when it thrusts? These are the valves that open to allow the air. Oh, they're the manifolds. Yeah, exactly. So, you can see on the end of the COPV there's an outlet that goes into the first cylinder here that is a valve, and then you have with a kingpin off that this nice tiny little actuator which we borrowed from another project we're working on called Optimus. Optimus. Yeah, it says it on it, even I [laughter] can work that out. And that opens and closes the valve, um, and shoots it down these equal-length pipes to those thrusters you see in the back. And can you operate those thrusters individually? Yes. And why would we do that, Tom? Uh, I'm assuming to help turn the car or not turn the car if you don't want to turn. But it's exactly right. Like with two sets of thrusters, we can slightly adjust as we see yaw so that we keep you straight. Yeah. Or if you need some turn, we can put some yaw in there. So, how fast can you... how do you fill it? And how fast can you fill it? And how long does it last? And how many PSI is it? Okay. And are there only thrusters on the back?
Franz Von Holzhausen 22:28 ↗
So, how do you fill it? There's a nozzle to fill it. You fill it with a high-pressure nitrogen system. We thought that was kind of on-brand because, you know, SpaceX does know a lot about, uh, you know, kind of cold-gas systems, and we didn't want to put like an actual afterburner on the car and burn fuel. That's not Tesla. Yeah. So, 200 liters here, you fill it like with a, you know, traditional like gas-filling system. We're working on a new system. Um, it's not fully developed yet, but current fill times are like two to six hours. We're hoping to get down to under a half hour. Um, and that system gives you one charge, and that charge can deploy then, you know, in a quarter-mile run. It'll last, you know, the first third, two-thirds of that, about five-ish seconds. Yeah. And gets you that thrust from zero to 60 in under a second. Under a second, sub-one, sub-one second, 0 to 60. The thruster system here will do about 0.85, 0.88 seconds.
Interviewer 23:22 ↗
So, how many times can you use that before it's depleted? It's one time. Once. It's once. Yeah. This is so beautifully pointless. No offense. So...
Franz Von Holzhausen 23:32 ↗
But you know, like we talk about it, nine years ago we were in a different space. We were scaling the EV industry, and Elon has always called this the cherry on top, right? Like it's okay to have fun, but you got to do the hard work first. But you don't need to make this car. We want to...
Interviewer 23:49 ↗
Tesla doesn't need to make this. So, why are you making it? And actually, can I do one thing before that?
Franz Von Holzhausen 23:57 ↗
In terms of design, that's a really hard thing to deal with in that shape.
When you think of the packaging of the car and then we're putting a big bottle in it, it defines some of the packaging. It's sitting on top of the twin motors, the batteries, suspension, everything else. It's a challenge. So, you alluded to a longer wheelbase and a longer tail. Now, you see why we needed to actually design the car.
Interviewer 24:29 ↗
So, what's here if you don't have this?
Franz Von Holzhausen 24:31 ↗
So, if you don't have this on the standard Roadster version, it's just open space for luggage.
Interviewer 24:39 ↗
What about the legality of a thruster?
Franz Von Holzhausen 24:42 ↗
Well, you know, I mean, I think that obviously some versions of this will be, you know, the rocket version, off-road use only.
Yeah, off-road use only, but this, like, you know, we are intending to, you know, fully certify it for crash and everything and make it a mulligan.
Yeah. So, it's a full production unit. You'll be able to drive with this on the road, but you can't use the system on a road because if you pick up a piece of gravel, you're putting it through someone's eye, or their windshield, or just, you know, 80 kons of cold gas into the... [clears throat]
Interviewer 25:09 ↗
But Tesla doesn't need to build this car.
Franz Von Holzhausen 25:12 ↗
No. But if you look at the history of the Roadster, the original Roadster was, you know, the proof of concept that EVs were fun to drive, could go the distance, and really prove the technology was viable. And then as we went through kind of the eras and we created a whole portfolio of vehicles that are more than capable of proving that, Roadster has always been like, what's the extreme that we could take? How far can you take an EV? How far can you take performance? Where is that border of limit of physics and vehicle? And that was our brief, and that's why... how do we use first principles and the limit of physics to get to the kind of ultimate last true driver car.
And that's why you sort of break the dynamics of physics. You add the skirts and the fan system to give you an advantage that most cars can't deal with. And then, you know, because we've got some friendly partners here at SpaceX, we said, let's also use some of their tech to do something no one else in the world can do. And then we bring all that tech to this to say like this is really like the pinnacle of performance.
Interviewer 26:24 ↗
Are you happy with the result? I mean, I love this. So, top speed is what?
Franz Von Holzhausen 26:29 ↗
It's 214 miles per hour for now, but we're working on a version because the boss threw down the gauntlet there that you'll have a 330 mph version of this car.
It's just gearing. So, the Aero can handle that. Yeah.
Interviewer 26:42 ↗
So, what's the rocket got that the thrust version hasn't?
Franz Von Holzhausen 26:46 ↗
Well, just to go through it, the standard Roadster will have 1 megawatt of power, which equates to 1,340 brake horsepower with roughly 960 lb-feet of torque. The performance version adds more torque, the fans for ground effect, adaptive suspension, and some other tweaks. The thrust version gets a 200 L cold air thruster system with four nozzles and will hit 60 mph from standstill in 0.85 of a second. And then there's the limited production rocket. Six more thruster nozzles for front and sides, one seat and a 600 L tank and hover. And even Tesla isn't really sure how fast it can be.
Interviewer 27:24 ↗
What's better than 200 L of cold gas?
Franz Von Holzhausen 27:29 ↗
Well, propane... 600 L of cold gas. So in the rocket version, it's actually very much like an airplane. You only get one seat, fighter jet, and the second seat is a 400 L cold gas tank.
Oh god. And then there are six more thrusters, one in each corner to push up, and two at the front for a little bit of yaw control.
Interviewer 27:51 ↗
So you are aiding the car in turning, but then you're pointing them at the floor. What's it going to do if you do that? Are you saying it can hover? You're saying it's a flying car.
Franz Von Holzhausen 28:05 ↗
You'll see tomorrow. What do they... I'll call your... how high... enough to be answered at a later date.
Interviewer 28:15 ↗
Again, it's totally pointless. But if it actually flies...
Franz Von Holzhausen 28:18 ↗
Well, you know, like at Tesla, we like to prove people wrong. A lot of people thought electric vehicles wouldn't work. A lot of people thought autonomous vehicles wouldn't work. A lot of people thought electric semis would never exist. And no one thought you could ever make a flying car. So, this is a car that can help itself change direction by firing cold air thrusters and fly. Consider the boundaries pushed.
So, there's some serious aero going on here, but it all kind of hides away when not needed. We talked about the aero underneath the car, but like I said before, the design of the car transforms into a passive aero package that looks like this.
Interviewer 28:56 ↗
Oh my goodness. So the trick in working with Franz is everything is everybody's job.
Franz Von Holzhausen 29:04 ↗
It's like a Fabergé egg, you know, when you twist it and everything pulls out.
So we start from the very front where in the mouth, actually down here behind the chin spoiler, we have wings that open.
And these wings go up to 80 degrees so we can actually dam it when we need low drag.
Interviewer 29:20 ↗
Should I do that?
Franz Von Holzhausen 29:21 ↗
You can sign it over here if you can see them like way back in here.
Interviewer 29:26 ↗
Oh yeah, there you go. See them moving. Yeah. And then is that actual and could you use that as an air of flatness?
Franz Von Holzhausen 29:32 ↗
That doesn't actually... for being able to see forward, but air comes through there and then you challenge with the front to get down forces. You always need to let the air go out so that air can come out over the roof. Exactly.
And this also adds to the thermal cooling system because it comes through the radiator fan. The rad's down there flat and I can see the fan, and then this is pinching out the... pulls the air out of the front wheel, the front wheel.
A lot of times the engineer wins on this and you put it in the door and you see the air flow through the door. But to keep with Franz's clean line theme, you know, this is where we work together as a team. We didn't want to punch big holes on the top of the or have like a barge board or have an extra big or like a cutout in the door that just has a... So we open that up and you get the air flow out the top and out the sides.
Interviewer 30:18 ↗
So is this like a 60 mph change or is it...
Franz Von Holzhausen 30:21 ↗
Yeah. I mean, you know, aero doesn't really start working till 40, 50, 60 mph. So we use the suction system before that to get everything we want.
And then these come out when the speed starts to make sense, about 60, let's say 50. And then we can use this for multiple modes. Either the high downforce mode or the low drag mode. Right now we actually have the wing low drag.
Interviewer 30:40 ↗
So that's more of a longtail aspect to extend that aerodynamic profile.
Franz Von Holzhausen 30:45 ↗
Correct. But we can move it and we can get to high down.
Interviewer 30:47 ↗
Is it moving the...
Franz Von Holzhausen 30:48 ↗
It does. It moves in that plane.
Interviewer 30:50 ↗
So that's high downforce.
That's actually quite a big surface area.
Franz Von Holzhausen 30:55 ↗
It's huge. That's very... You notice that we have a, you know, a biplane effect underneath.
So you're actually allowing the channel to flow through and that gives us air flow.
Interviewer 31:10 ↗
It's like a Gurney flap.
Franz Von Holzhausen 31:11 ↗
Yeah. It's like a Gurney flap underneath the wing. Very, very aerospace forward, you know, but that way we get flow under and over. We push the vehicle down.

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APA

holzhausen, F. V. (2026, October 16). New Tesla Roadster: It’s Finally Here… And It Flies! | 4K [Interview transcript]. Top Gear. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3071622/

MLA

Franz Von holzhausen. "New Tesla Roadster: It’s Finally Here… And It Flies! | 4K." Top Gear, 16 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3071622/.

BibTeX
@misc{holzhausen2026_3071622,
  author       = {Franz Von holzhausen},
  title        = {New Tesla Roadster: It’s Finally Here… And It Flies! | 4K},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Top Gear. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {oct},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3071622/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}