I already ordered one of Tesla's flying cars.
I own three Cybertrucks. Enough said.
What Tesla’s Flying Roadster Really Means for the Global Auto Race
Elon Musk’s latest vision for the company’s sports car has more to do with China than cold-gas rocket thrusters
By Tim Higgins, WSJ
Oct. 17, 2026
The new Tesla Roadster was pure spectacle.
There was the design that gave the sports car an appearance of a jet fighter crossed with a Lamborghini. A suction system that enabled it to hang upside down 69 feet above the ground. And, the defining feature, cold-gas rocket thrusters that jumped the car over a line of vehicles while doing a midair barrel roll.
With a flying sports car, Elon Musk displayed again that he’s America’s biggest dreamer. So when the Tesla CEO puts on a flashy show, as he did Thursday at a rocket facility near Waco, Texas, one must take note—not because the new Roadster is going to become a bestseller. After almost a decade of promises, it’s frankly hard to believe the halo car will actually begin production in 2028 with all of the features Musk laid out.
In many ways, whether it flies or not is besides the point. Unveiling the Roadster with out-of-this-world technology reiterated that Musk has given up designing cars for regular people to drive. He says the Roadster is the last new vehicle Tesla will offer for humans to drive and is betting instead on remaking Tesla as a robotics company.
In effect, Musk is leaving the mainstream car market to the Chinese—who, he has suggested, are so formidable that many Western automakers are unable to compete without government intervention. It’s a telling sign of where things are going for the Western automotive industry.
So, too, was this past week’s Paris Motor Show. It looked more like the Shanghai or Beijing auto shows with so many Chinese brands on display. Throughout Europe, the arrival of these Chinese brands is upending long-established players almost overnight.
Tesla unveiling its next-generation Roadster electric car hovering with thrusters.
A grab from a live feed released by Tesla shows the company unveiling its next-generation Roadster electric car. Tesla/AFP/Getty Images
While U.S. automakers have so far been insulated in their home market from Chinese competition, they, too, seem paralyzed with indecision. That has created the worst rate of new-vehicle introductions since at least the 1970s.
“China manufacturing commoditizes cars, drives costs down, no one can compete with them…what remains for the West is to move up or get pushed out,” Michael Dunne, a longtime automotive industry consultant who spent many years in China and who has a book coming out the topic in January called “Car Wars,” said. “Western automakers are evolving into niche players of the future.”
Western automakers aren’t yet en masse preparing their own flying cars a la Tesla. But there are signs some are feeling the same up-or-out pressure as Musk.
Porsche, facing dramatic sales declines in China, announced its own plan earlier this month to bolster its business by offering more expensive vehicles rather than chasing volume. As part of that, it revealed the Mission S Thursday.
True, the midengine supercar was something of an afterthought in the face of Tesla’s stunt. Then again, it’s tough to compete for attention when Musk’s rocket vapor-cloud filled the air and the Roadster did flips through the sky.
To be clear, Musk isn’t betting Tesla’s future on being a niche carmaker. The new Roadster serves the same purpose the version revealed in late 2017 did: to stoke excitement while he races to find a way to make his bigger promises true.
The Tesla Roadster seen upside down on a ramp .
The Roadster seen upside down on a ramp during Thursday's event. Tesla/Reuters
I was there when Musk surprised everyone with the new Roadster’s original reveal—a “one more thing” moment at a time when Tesla needed some Steve Jobs magic. Tesla was struggling to ramp production of its bet-the-company sedan, the Model 3, and in need of a vision for where things were going.
The slicked-curved Roadster—and promises of hitting a 0-to-60 time that then seemed to defy physics—did that and more. The event underscored that even as Tesla pursued affordable EVs for everyone, it still had the chops to offer high-end ones, too.
For $50,000, excited customers could be on the list for the vehicle, which was supposed to arrive in 2020 and never did. Those deposits helped raise cash when Tesla desperately needed it and fueled investors’ dreams of what the company would become.
But between then and Tesla turning into the world’s most valuable automaker something unexpected occurred. China’s own automotive industry took off, inspired by the success of Musk’s vision for the electrified automobile.
Dominating that field became a national mission—not just for the jobs it ensured but for China’s dual-use industrial framework that aims to serve both civilian and military purposes. It turns out, winning in the electric-car race—building up the electronics and battery know-how—would also be useful in the defense-tech arms race.
China’s auto industry benefited greatly from government-backed support, according to Dunne: low-cost loans, free land, cheap energy and labor training.
The results? An industrial machine that built up scale and is now threatening to eat the West.
The chaos in Europe is giving U.S. executives a sneak peek of things to come if China can figure out a way into the American market. A Chinese-made EV costs about $11,000 less to produce than a European equivalent, according to a new report by consulting firm AlixPartners.
There was a time when it was Musk who was giving U.S. automotive executives heartburn. That was due to Tesla’s cost advantage when it came to making cars and his boasts about plans to reduce them further.
In early 2024, something changed. Musk appeared to wake up to a new reality.
Around then, Musk described Chinese carmakers as the most competitive in the world. “They will have significant success outside of China, depending on what kind of tariffs or trade barriers are established,” he said during an earnings call. “Frankly, I think if there aren’t trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.”
His comments were initially interpreted as a sign he supported tariffs against China, something he later said he wasn’t advocating. But, after that, his interest in human-driven cars clearly diminished.
Instead, he doubled down on physical AI and a purpose-built robot car, the Cybercab that recently joined the company’s nascent robotaxi fleet. A few days ago, Tesla said it had scaled to more than 300 Cybercabs in Austin, Texas, in the first month. That’s a far cry from the at least two million annually that Musk has predicted Tesla will eventually build.
On Thursday, Musk didn’t say how many rocket-cars Tesla will actually make. The only thing that really mattered was the video clips created to trend on social media and the dreams of what might come next.
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