Blog Musk Says He Wants the Roadster to Hover

Elon Musk wants the upcoming Tesla Roadster to hover.

The Tesla CEO shared new details on the supercar, as well as the possibility of a van with a solar roof during an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Musk said Tesla should finalize engineering this year and could start delivering the car next year. Musk has teased a “SpaceX” version of the car for several years, saying it will use cold-gas thrusters developed by the space company, propelling the car to even greater speeds. 

But, Elon wants the cat to fly.

“I want it to hover,” Musk said. “I’m trying to figure out how to make this thing hover, without, you know, killing people. I thought, maybe we could make it hover, but not too high. So maybe it could hover, like, a meter above the ground, or something. So, if you plummet, you blow out the suspension, but you’re not going to die. Maybe, I don’t know, six feet. If we put a height limit on it, it will probably be fine.”

Musk told Rogan that Roadsters with the SpaceX package will not have a back seat, making room for the thruster system.

Musk said he expects the thruster to come out of a James Bond-style flip-down license plate.

Listen to the full interview here. 

 

[MikeBur]

Hovering with cold gas (i.e. air) thrusters will make incredible noise. You can’t use it in any public area(even if safety regulations otherwise allowed it, which they probably won’t)

I believe you’re on to something here:
“Roadster 2021. Now with Full Self Hover option*”

* Subject to regulatory permission

 

[MikeBur]

Personally, I would much prefer moving skirts for better ground effect and downforce. Reducing downforce makes driving at speed an interesting experience more aligned to accelerated religious belief than physics

 

[jvpEMX]

Plaid, hover... is that essential?
getting a waypoint on the navigation system seems too difficult. Having 360° view also. Matrix head lights. Reading traffic signs correctly and connected to cruise control. Speed limiter, towing hook on MS....
So many highly appreciated features are waiting. I dont even need FSD.
If 50% of all Teslas built last year have the FSD option, we are talking about 2.000.000.000$, but no one gets what he has payed for.
It seems to me that Elon has the same strange disease as Nicolas Tesla...

 

[technohosea]

The way in which the car has incredible power, i for one can not put it pass Elon to make the roadster hover a reality. i mean he has been send rockets to space

 

[MikeBur]

The way in which the car has incredible power, i for one can not put it pass Elon to make the roadster hover a reality. i mean he has been send rockets to space

First post and to a youtube video?

 

[Stealth.Pilot]

This is the sort of thing that pisses me off. They haven't got surround view parking cameras to protect those beautiful 22" wheels, but he is putting R&D dollars on a useless feature that will be an expensive option on a car which might be >1% of their annual output.

 

[Stealth.Pilot]

Plaid, hover... is that essential?
getting a waypoint on the navigation system seems too difficult. Having 360° view also. Matrix head lights. Reading traffic signs correctly and connected to cruise control. Speed limiter, towing hook on MS....
So many highly appreciated features are waiting. I dont even need FSD.
If 50% of all Teslas built last year have the FSD option, we are talking about 2.000.000.000$, but no one gets what he has payed for.
It seems to me that Elon has the same strange disease as Nicolas Tesla...

Agree 100%. Fortunately there is an EV coming soon from a company that knows how to deliver more useful features.

 

[qdeathstar]

The Roadster will no doubt hover with a well-timed fart noise.

I'm hoping to live long enough to see FSD released beyond Beta. I couldn't possibly be interested in another fantasy feature.

But, like, hear me out, what if they let your put 20k down on said feature today?

 

[qdeathstar]

Agree 100%. Fortunately there is an EV coming soon from a company that knows how to deliver more useful features.

Wow. Theres a lot of lipstick on that pig.

 

[ScoobyDoo82]

Let’s put this in perspective, a single motor of a Learjet delivers 4,600 pounds of thrust.

The new Tesla Roadster prototype battery is about 1,900 pounds, plus the car and the occupants. (Original Tesla roadsters are about 2,700 pounds total weight.) Then the lifting thruster equipment needs to be added. That’s a lot of weight to lift! A light two-seater airplane is 1,300 fully loaded. A Cessna 172 four-seater aircraft is about 2,500 pounds, fully loaded, including fuel, occupants and luggage.

On an airplane, thrust provides the forward motion. The wings are what provide lift.

Helicopter rotors are huge. A Harrier jet and the F-35 use vertical thrust in special situations using complicated systems. True hovercraft are extremely light.

Lifting the car with a hot rocket or hot thrust engine would destroy the pavement. So it would have to be be some type of cool air pressure, perhaps multiple electric driven turbines. Flying debris is a major liability issue.

A six-foot hover is technically flying. As a pilot, I can call attention to the concept of ground effect. It’s easier to lift an object closer to the ground (about two or three feet) because the ground is there to push upon. When you get up to about six feet, significantly more force is needed to create lift independent of the ground.

One foot of lift would be noticeable. Two feet would feel like a large SUV. Three feet is a lifted truck!

... and where is it going to go? The vehicle will not move until the wheels are firmly planted on the ground!

I’m all for the hover feature. It would be very cool at red lights! Two-feet would be more than adequate. I think Elon has flying cars (hovercraft) in mind for the long term... and his usual media bluster for the short-term!

This would be awesome, but will never happen in our lifetime. The liability of it as you mentioned is the main reason why. This is why helicopters can’t just land anywhere, and they require a special license/training in order to understand/appreciate all of the other factors that go in. A regular class-c license holder will never be legally allowed to drive/pilot one of Elon’s hovering roadsters! Just wayyyyy to much that can go wrong.

 

[designrs]

All Elon has to do is say, “Not for use on public roads.”
Then see if law enforcement wants to deal with it.

 

[ScoobyDoo82]

All Elon has to do is say, “Not for use on public roads.”
Then see if law enforcement wants to deal with it.

Unfortunately regulations wouldn’t allow it regardless of whatever disclaimers Elon and co. put out.
Who would insure that? And if any underwriters did issue a policy - it would be too expensive.
my wife surprised me with a “Porsche Experience” track day a few years ago. The package was expensive, but the insurance (for just one day) was too expensive. Liability is an ugly mofo

 

[dramsey]

Talk to anyone that has owned a Supercar. They are great to own; if you buy a dedicated service garage to maintain them.

Lambo Aventedor S - $7,500/year maintenance - Annual Service is $5,000, $2,000 for tires (good for 6,000 miles or so). Set this list for more info

Bottom line. If those prices are a factor, don't buy the car.

Eh. Depends on the supercar, and how flexible your definition of same is.

Also depends on whom you listen to. The link you cite is for a leasing company, and I think they're misrepresenting the annual cost to make their lease deal look better. In other words, no, the annual service costs of an Aventador isn't $5,000; it's closer to $1K. The $5K cost is for major services (all fluids, belt change, etc.) which occur every 4-5 years depending on how much the car is driven.

Is the current Acura NSX a supercar? It's got the looks and performance, but Honda reliability. After four years my total maintenance cost has been two oil changes, admittedly $500 each, but still. At $180K it's a lot cheaper than a Roadster 2.0.

A Porsche 911 Turbo S will be similar. And if we're looking at cars that cost in the same ballpark as the new Roadster, like the Lamborghini Huracan, the maintenance costs are actually pretty reasonable, slightly more than the NSX (a local Huaracan owner actually pays less for his oil changes at the local Audi dealership than I do).

Yes, there are longer-term service and ownership costs that must be taken into account. However, for cars in this price range, the cost of money and depreciation will be _much_ larger factors than service cost.

 

[ThomasD]

I would think that the thrusters would be very loud. Stand 3 feet from a large air compressor when the drain valve has been opened. When I drain my 30 gallon air compressor I wear hearing protection

 

[Dolemite]

I would think that the thrusters would be very loud. Stand 3 feet from a large air compressor when the drain valve has been opened. When I drain my 30 gallon air compressor I wear hearing protection

Same here. I accidentally uncoupled a quick-release on the compressor end one time, near a wall, and briefly went deaf... We'll see if this fantasy becomes reality after a few people's eardrums explode.

 

[electrifyme]

Elon says a lot.of things.. how about getting it produced first.

 

[D.E.]

Musk is not going to make a two ton car hover. He has rocket scientists that work for him for God’s sake. He should take one of them to dinner and actually listen to him.

Then he should take a public relations specialist out to dinner and explore what he’s doing to the Tesla brand. Then take a marketing man to dinner and explore what diminishing public opinion of the Tesla brand is going to do to sales.

Then he can figure out what he needs to do to make Tesla an ideal car company. He can take me to dinner, I can point him in the right direction there. I’m a medical man so it stands to reason I should know all there is to know about running a car company.

Then we could talk about why a medically untrained car company owner shouldn’t be presuming to know more about disease and public health than experts trained in the fields. We can talk about viruses, how they work, exactly how the body defeats them, and why sometimes the body doesn’t. We can discuss how the immune system can go wrong, how it can make mistakes and zealously attack the body it’s meant to protect. We can talk about why children are not magically immune. Then we can have an after dinner brandy and I can explain gravity, physics, and thus exactly why Tesla’s can’t, and won’t ever fly.

Why can’t he see all this? He’s a brilliant man. How can he get things so very wrong?

 

[qdeathstar]

Nice nice, but that last post was from two years ago. Also if you read the articles surrounding this around the time he is mainly wanting to just lift wheels over pot holes which seems reasonable enough to me but isn’t happening with roadster.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Why can’t he see all this? He’s a brilliant man. How can he get things so very wrong?

Because he drank his own Kool-aid. He clearly thinks he's the emperor and no matter what he thinks is absolutely golden. The problem is, even if people were to tell him he had no clothes, he wouldn't never believe it (and would have their Twitter account banned).