Tesla unveils what it says is a flying car

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Thursday unveiled a car that he said will be able to fly, a feature long relegated to science fiction and Saturday morning cartoons.

At a product reveal at a Texas test facility belonging to SpaceX, Musk’s other public company, he showed off Tesla’s new Roadster, a two-person sports car that not only could go from 0 to 60 mph in record time of less than a second, but he said used suction underneath the car to climb up a steep ramp and hang upside down before spinning off the ramp, flipping in the air and using air jets to land.

The car did not have an actual driver during the demonstration, which was done “to make sure we don’t kill anyone,” Musk told the crowd.

“Success is not guaranteed,” he said. “I mean that. It’ll probably work, but if it doesn’t work, we’re at a safe distance.”

Later in Thursday’s demonstration, the Roadster used the same jets to leap over a line of Tesla’s existing models parked side-by-side, and then used the jets off the back of the car to accelerate to 60 mph in that record time.

But even with the success of the staged event, whether the car will actually be able to live up to the promise and provide owners with the ability to both fly rather than just hop, while also being able to drive very fast on roads, remains to be proven.

The car uses 10 nozzles and what Musk described as “ultra high-pressure air tanks” to propel itself, both in the air, and to accelerate quickly when on the ground. He described the technology as “the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company.”

He said the car will go into production in 2028, although throughout Tesla’s history, Musk has made promises about when things would be accomplish, only to miss that timeline by a number of years.

Musk told an enthusiastic crowd of Tesla fans “we need an audience to prove that it’s not AI or SI. So you guys can tell people you saw it with your eyes, because what you see with your eyes, you will not believe.”

And whether the car is able to truly fly is very difficult to say, despite Thursday night’s demonstration. It certainly didn’t have any demonstration of long-range flight.

In recent years, there have been many advancements in electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, known as eVTOL’s. While there are some working models, there are still many engineering roadblocks to road-worthy cars that can truly fly.

“Aircraft are extremely sensitive to weight, whereas with ground vehicles you want them to have bumpers and crumple zones and all that,” Roger Conner, curator for vertical flight at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, told CNN Thursday before the event. “Inevitably, something that is a hybrid between the two is going to be a poor performing aircraft and a poor performing vehicle, and also quite expensive.”

One car that is in development, made by California start-up Alef, has been able to get airborne using eight propellers, four in the front and four in the back. But the vehicle weighs 254 pounds, a small fraction of the weight of a Tesla Roadster. It can also only carry one person which must weigh less than the vehicle itself.

Ahead of Tesla’s demonstration, Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny told CNN that he wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla was able to get its Roadster off the ground during the event. But that doesn’t mean it can truly “fly.”

“It absolutely is 100% feasible,” he said. “That being said, the hardest part on all eVTOLs, and for us, it’s a transition from (rising) vertical to (moving) forward. It needs to be extremely careful, making sure you do not lose lift, and making sure it’s very stable.”

Conner also expressed doubt that any street legal car like a Roadster would be able to fly anywhere an owner might want it to go.

“We’re not talking about sustained flight,” he said. “We are literally talking about hopping.”

特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克周四发布了一款他声称能够飞行的汽车，这项功能长期以来只存在于科幻小说和周六早晨的动画片中。

在马斯克另一家上市公司 SpaceX 位于德克萨斯州的测试设施举行的产品发布会上，他展示了特斯拉新款 Roadster，这是一款双人跑车，不仅可以在不到一秒的创纪录时间内从 0 加速到 60 英里/小时，而且他还表示，这款跑车利用车底的吸力爬上陡坡，倒挂在坡道上，然后旋转着离开坡道，在空中翻转，并利用喷气发动机着陆。

马斯克告诉人群，演示过程中这辆车并没有真正的驾驶员，这样做是为了“确保我们不会造成任何人伤亡”。

“成功并非必然，”他说。“我是认真的。这很可能奏效，但即便失败，我们也有安全保障。”

在周四的演示中，Roadster 跑车利用同样的喷气装置跃过并排停放的一排特斯拉现有车型，然后利用车尾的喷气装置加速到 60 英里/小时，创下了纪录。

但即便这次表演活动取得了成功，这辆车是否真的能够兑现承诺，让车主既能飞翔而不是跳跃，又能高速行驶在道路上，还有待验证。

这款汽车使用10个喷嘴和马斯克所说的“超高压气罐”来驱动自身，无论是在空中还是在地面上都能快速加速。他将这项技术描述为“世界顶级汽车公司和世界顶级火箭公司合作的成果”。

他表示，这款车将于 2028 年投产，尽管纵观特斯拉的历史，马斯克曾多次承诺何时能够完成某些事情，但最终都比预期晚了好几年。

马斯克对一群热情高涨的特斯拉粉丝说：“我们需要现场观众来证明这不是人工智能或智能系统。这样你们就可以告诉别人你们亲眼所见了，因为你们亲眼所见的，你们是不会相信的。”

尽管周四晚上进行了演示，但这辆车是否真的能够飞行仍然很难说。它显然没有进行任何长距离飞行演示。

近年来，电动垂直起降飞行器（eVTOL）取得了长足进步。虽然已经有一些可运行的模型，但要制造出真正能够飞行且符合道路行驶标准的飞行器，仍然存在许多工程上的障碍。

“飞机对重量极其敏感，而地面车辆则需要配备保险杠、碰撞吸能区等等，”史密森国家航空航天博物馆垂直飞行馆长罗杰·康纳在周四活动前接受CNN采访时表示。“不可避免地，介于两者之间的混合体既不会是性能优异的飞机，也不会是性能优异的地面车辆，而且造价还会非常昂贵。”

加州初创公司Alef正在研发的一款汽车，利用前后各四个螺旋桨，已经能够飞起来。但这款车重254磅（约115公斤），仅为特斯拉Roadster重量的一小部分。而且它一次只能搭载一人，乘客的体重必须比车本身还要轻。

在特斯拉进行演示之前，Alef公司首席执行官吉姆·杜霍夫尼告诉CNN，如果特斯拉能够在活动中让其Roadster跑车起飞，他不会感到惊讶。但这并不意味着它真的能“飞”。

“这绝对百分之百可行，”他说。“话虽如此，所有电动垂直起降飞行器（eVTOL）最难的部分，对我们来说也是如此，就是从垂直上升过渡到向前飞行。这需要极其谨慎，确保不会损失升力，并确保飞行器非常稳定。”

康纳还表示怀疑，像 Roadster 这样的合法上路汽车是否能够飞到车主想去的任何地方。

“我们说的不是持续飞行，”他说。“我们说的真的是跳跃。”