If Doc Brown's time machine was real and posted here, HN would be complaining that it's noisy, unimpressive, not street legal, uninsurable, and attacking Brown's personal character because he's a dangerous nutcase.
The time machine actually accomplishes something. I fail to see what this accomplishes other than a very cool circus stunt. Straight out of fast and furious. Which is great and all, but not a production car.
Honestly, the fact that they are talking about this being a production car is what kills the cool. If they just said they were showcasing some cool technology that they could do, then I think it would at least be honest and people wouldn't shit on it so much. But with how many times they said the new Roadster would be on the market, can you really blame anybody for not believing it?
Remember concept cars? Companies have been doing gimmickey shit forever and nobody expected those things to make it to production.
Well this isn't real so that's not a very good analogy. I also don't think Doc Brown (who's also not real) was famous for committing fraud and lying habitually to manipulate the market.
Maybe it makes for a closer analogy. Neither the time machine or the flying car are real, but we react to the "inventors" differently. We're not haters. We just have taste.
To parrot other people’s claims I would have needed to read them first. So this is my own well informed speculation. I have worked with CO2 thrust and remote controlled cars in my hobby pursuits. This is the simplest way to achieve what was demonstrated.
When you get into an accident with another car, the explosion of that 10 kPSI tank behind your seat. will make sure you are the coffee. You know...Engineering...
On the bright side, we're going to find out if extremely high pressure explosions can put out lithium ion battery fires. I vote no, but it'll likely remove any nearby debris/combustible material/organic matter/pink mist out of the combustion area.
I genuinely didn't believe they'd ever do more than use cold gas thrusters for a lame boost effect, if at all. Happy to admit I was wrong, that was cool.
I wonder if Musk is entering the brain rot phase, and Tesla will decline from now on. After all, this is something Tesla doesn't need, a second dud after the Cybertruck. I'm sure the decline will take some time though.
The reality of EVs is that they all provide more or less identical driving experience - immense amounts of speed in straight lines and pure control around corners. But you can't really make something nimble or chuckable when it weighs 1.5 tons.
(Calling it a "roadster" is cute, but this has nothing in common with a Boxster or Miata. If anything, the ICE analogue would be muscle cars.)
Because there are no real unique driving characteristics, the only engineering you can compete with is raw speed or price. That and crazy gimmicks.
You should go look up the weight of a 911, Boxter, or Miata. And then, I suspect, you will not return here to reply to this comment. You'll invent some other reason why EVs can't be "nimble" or whatever, because it can't be your worldview that's wrong, it has to be the world.
Have you actually taken any of these cars along a twisty country road? They are not at all similar.
911 is not really a roadster - it's a full on sports car. Even then the older ones top out at about a ton. Same as the Boxster and Miata.
Most serious sports EVs start at 2 tons or more. It's really impressive what they can do to hide the weight, but because it's all digitally controlled, it's really not a dynamic driving experience in the same way.
More importantly to my point - all of them have nearly identical drive characteristics. Outside of raw performance, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to describe the difference in handling between a Tesla, Mach-E, or a Polestar - I'm not sure I could give you anything.
This thing is covered in cold gas thrusters, I'm betting it can go around a corner faster than almost any other car. The limitation might be G forces on the driver. Maximum performance may only be achievable in self driving mode.
Are you referring to the Tesla Roadster? Because, if not, I am pretty sure that most EVs, except for maybe small compact EV cars, usually weights 2 tons or more.
tesla roadster weights 1.6-1.7 tons, thats prob without compressed air. But common, if you buy a rocket car, that is capable to suck itself to the road, you will not care about this extra 300-400 kg of weight, that probably will be compensated by perfect low center of gravity and several motors.
Can't wait for these things to endanger my family's life on some Colorado mountain highways. If the suction works at speed, people are gonna drive even more recklessly.
You did say "consumer tech" - so you're probablt aware of the BT-46. But this has been done a few times before... though it's probably more dangerous than ever with up to 1MW (1000kW) output from electric motors. Some of these were actually sold afair.
I'm not sure about those thrusters though, I doubt they'd be legal?
No advance. Its engineering gimmicks to hide the fact self driving is 15 years late, and all recently announced Tesla models are worst, and more expensive, than any Chinese alternative.
The jumping car used a 600L canister of 10 kPSI compressed air behind the seats. Musk claimed the car will be able to refill the canister itself, but he didn't demonstrate that. In reality, the size of a multistage compressor to reach those pressures and the heat dissipation for compressing that much air to 680 atmospheres makes that impractical and would use several times more energy than the batteries store. You would have to get filled up at whatever specialized system they used for the demo. The weight of the compressed air in that canister alone is over 750 pounds. It's a fun one-off trick, but I wouldn't worry about this showing up on an actual public road.
The one with the actual rocket engine is not being sold to the public and Tesla website explicitly states it's not legal to drive it on public roads. It's mostly just a cool demo/prototype and I'm sure there will be privately run tracks that let people drive one.
The generally available car will have cold-gas thrusters which boost acceleration but is nothing like what was demo'd.
And it's sure going to increase the blast radius when these get into a collision. Even if you can't fire the thrusters, that pressurized tank can't be safe.
Teslas already have very strict (annoyingly strict) gating keeping specific functionality off of public roads (Summon). The drag mode thruster-assisted boost will probably leverage that. I also imagine that cameras on the car would stop it from being engaged if it detects humans in its firing area even when not on public roads.
The flying trim will never be sold to general consumers. Even the rear-thruster trim is currently listed at a $250,000 pre-order fee, which is a deposit for a fraction of the full cost of the car. Final cost will be over $1M. Any of the thruster variants will be extremely rare; like, the one guy in your city that has one will show it off at car shows twice a year, McLaren P1, level of rare.
Yeah they'll make a few dozen of them and sell them to people like Joe Rogan. There is zero chance that any individual who doesn't have the personal phone number of a Tesla leadership team member will be able to buy one of these.
Why Musk would spend probably tens of millions of dollars on this prototype which clearly will never be drivable on roads. One explanation is he is a trillionaire and the 14 year old in him thinks it would simply be cool to do it.
I think there is a more rational explanation. Tesla sales have slowed, other companies are catching up, and if it weren't for import issues, Chinese cars would be eating Tesla's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet Tesla is trading at a 330 P/E and Musk has to do something to make it seem like Tesla is still light-years ahead of everyone else and just wait, that 330 P/E will be justified any quarter now. Just like shooting a roadster into deep space was just a PR stunt, this is a PR stunt to boost the brand with no actual market relevance.
Absolutely, but an even more likely explanation is that he's going to "acquire" Tesla with Space X and pay a premium (on top of the 330 P/E!). The SEC in this country is completely useless. Sure you can't invest in private companies if you're not an "accredited investor" but Musk is free to scam trillions of dollars.
Musk really is the master of fraud. Twitter gets bought by Space X to conceal the massive loss in valuation, Tesla gets pumped with endless "we'll have self-driving cars next year", for 10+ years... now that the Tesla bubble is finally popping he needs to dump it on the Space X/Twitter shareholders, so we get this demo of a thing that will never hit the road. Bag holders beware, Musk's masterpiece of market manipulation is about to execute with the merger of all his lies.
No, he bought it because he was contractually obliged to do so even after he tried to wriggle out of it.
I mean this isn't even ancient history, it only happened in 2022. He sent three termination notifications before it was determined that he had no grounds to refuse to buy.
Oh, it doesn't require a person to continually monitor it now? I missed that change. Until that happens I don't think it qualifies as "full" self driving.
Only from a regulatory perspective. Anyone who drives a Tesla for long enough knows how to defeat the monitoring system, and doing so is extremely safe; significantly safer than a human driver. I would have no concerns summoning it autonomously over 100 miles, once the law allows for that to happen.
Well, you're insane for thinking that. Drunk driving is very unsafe, and population-level statistics don't lie. They're quite conclusive when it comes to grading the safety of drunk driving as being dangerous relative to sober driving, and Tesla's full self driving system as being safe relative to sober driving.
In a single 5 mile trip within the last month, an FSD Tesla I was in made four mistakes that were saved by the actions of other drivers on the road. I have concerns about you summoning it autonomously over 100 miles.
I'd agree it's novel if it is, in fact, a rocket car. I'm skeptical about the car part, though. It's much less impressive if it's just a lightweight prop. I haven't seen the full presentation, though, to see if they drive it, if someone can climb in and so on.
After Elon almost died in 2000 when he lost control of his McClaren I wonder if the real reason for these thrusters isn't actually to recover when controlling this beast proves too much for the driver and it starts to spin out or accidentally launches into the air.
If Doc Brown's time machine was real and posted here, HN would be complaining that it's noisy, unimpressive, not street legal, uninsurable, and attacking Brown's personal character because he's a dangerous nutcase.
Seriously, I bet these are the same people who were shitting on the Hyperloop!
The time machine actually accomplishes something. I fail to see what this accomplishes other than a very cool circus stunt. Straight out of fast and furious. Which is great and all, but not a production car.
Honestly, the fact that they are talking about this being a production car is what kills the cool. If they just said they were showcasing some cool technology that they could do, then I think it would at least be honest and people wouldn't shit on it so much. But with how many times they said the new Roadster would be on the market, can you really blame anybody for not believing it?
Remember concept cars? Companies have been doing gimmickey shit forever and nobody expected those things to make it to production.
You forgot the part where Doc Brown purchased parts for the vehicle through funding by terrorists.
Well this isn't real so that's not a very good analogy. I also don't think Doc Brown (who's also not real) was famous for committing fraud and lying habitually to manipulate the market.
Maybe it makes for a closer analogy. Neither the time machine or the flying car are real, but we react to the "inventors" differently. We're not haters. We just have taste.
Elon Musk is not an inventor and definitely does not have good taste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono... - Worth a read if you haven't already
I know its marketing but still it's super inspiring to me. Try pulling it off in real hardware. It's incredible.
It’s a CO2 canister with no battery or motors on wheels. What was incredible again?
Do you have any proof of this, or are you just parroting claims that others are making?
To parrot other people’s claims I would have needed to read them first. So this is my own well informed speculation. I have worked with CO2 thrust and remote controlled cars in my hobby pursuits. This is the simplest way to achieve what was demonstrated.
The audience for this must get really scared when the magician cuts the lady in half
Does anyone have more info on the cupholders? I need to know it won’t spill my coffee.
When you get into an accident with another car, the explosion of that 10 kPSI tank behind your seat. will make sure you are the coffee. You know...Engineering...
On the bright side, we're going to find out if extremely high pressure explosions can put out lithium ion battery fires. I vote no, but it'll likely remove any nearby debris/combustible material/organic matter/pink mist out of the combustion area.
Not spilling coffee during a roll is a solved problem: https://youtu.be/V9pvG_ZSnCc
"gimbal cupholder" is what you want to google.
They're typically used to affix your beer to the steering wheel of your boat.
I genuinely didn't believe they'd ever do more than use cold gas thrusters for a lame boost effect, if at all. Happy to admit I was wrong, that was cool.
(still not buying a tesla thooughbeit)
I wonder if Musk is entering the brain rot phase, and Tesla will decline from now on. After all, this is something Tesla doesn't need, a second dud after the Cybertruck. I'm sure the decline will take some time though.
SpaceX is the largest buyer of Cybertrucks. They've spent more than $100 million on them. Link: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-buying-own-cyber...
The reality of EVs is that they all provide more or less identical driving experience - immense amounts of speed in straight lines and pure control around corners. But you can't really make something nimble or chuckable when it weighs 1.5 tons.
(Calling it a "roadster" is cute, but this has nothing in common with a Boxster or Miata. If anything, the ICE analogue would be muscle cars.)
Because there are no real unique driving characteristics, the only engineering you can compete with is raw speed or price. That and crazy gimmicks.
You should go look up the weight of a 911, Boxter, or Miata. And then, I suspect, you will not return here to reply to this comment. You'll invent some other reason why EVs can't be "nimble" or whatever, because it can't be your worldview that's wrong, it has to be the world.
Have you actually taken any of these cars along a twisty country road? They are not at all similar.
911 is not really a roadster - it's a full on sports car. Even then the older ones top out at about a ton. Same as the Boxster and Miata.
Most serious sports EVs start at 2 tons or more. It's really impressive what they can do to hide the weight, but because it's all digitally controlled, it's really not a dynamic driving experience in the same way.
More importantly to my point - all of them have nearly identical drive characteristics. Outside of raw performance, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to describe the difference in handling between a Tesla, Mach-E, or a Polestar - I'm not sure I could give you anything.
This thing is covered in cold gas thrusters, I'm betting it can go around a corner faster than almost any other car. The limitation might be G forces on the driver. Maximum performance may only be achievable in self driving mode.
yes, you can, if you think like an engineer. they have suction mechanism, low center of gravity that helps you to beat any ICE counterparts.
You can't call this beauty of engineering a muscle car.
> when it weighs 1.5 tons.
Are you referring to the Tesla Roadster? Because, if not, I am pretty sure that most EVs, except for maybe small compact EV cars, usually weights 2 tons or more.
The M3/MY are 2-2.5T. The Roadster will be lighter, and 1.5-2T is the same weight class as the 911 and Boxter.
Yup. I'm pretty sure my Model 3 Performance is around 4,000 lbs, about 500 lbs more than my wife's Honda CR-V.
tesla roadster weights 1.6-1.7 tons, thats prob without compressed air. But common, if you buy a rocket car, that is capable to suck itself to the road, you will not care about this extra 300-400 kg of weight, that probably will be compensated by perfect low center of gravity and several motors.
It’s a remote controlled CO2 canister on wheels with a skin that looks like a car. It’s a stupid publicity “stunt”. Har har Elon.
Can't wait for these things to endanger my family's life on some Colorado mountain highways. If the suction works at speed, people are gonna drive even more recklessly.
The suction can only work on a cleaned track. On a standard public road, they have to deal with capturing and disposing debris.
Thankfully this will never hit the road, it's just market manipulation.
What do you mean “just market manipulation”?
There’s no engineering advancement here?
I sure hope they don’t hit the road. Seems like an obviously novel (and terrifying) consumer technology
You did say "consumer tech" - so you're probablt aware of the BT-46. But this has been done a few times before... though it's probably more dangerous than ever with up to 1MW (1000kW) output from electric motors. Some of these were actually sold afair.
I'm not sure about those thrusters though, I doubt they'd be legal?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Murray_Automotive_T.50
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_F1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurtry_Sp%C3%A9irling
>> There’s no engineering advancement here?
No advance. Its engineering gimmicks to hide the fact self driving is 15 years late, and all recently announced Tesla models are worst, and more expensive, than any Chinese alternative.
The jumping car used a 600L canister of 10 kPSI compressed air behind the seats. Musk claimed the car will be able to refill the canister itself, but he didn't demonstrate that. In reality, the size of a multistage compressor to reach those pressures and the heat dissipation for compressing that much air to 680 atmospheres makes that impractical and would use several times more energy than the batteries store. You would have to get filled up at whatever specialized system they used for the demo. The weight of the compressed air in that canister alone is over 750 pounds. It's a fun one-off trick, but I wouldn't worry about this showing up on an actual public road.
Tesla has a history of failed hype campaigns. At this point, them hyping something is a negative expectation that it will come to pass.
I mean it will never be a product. It's just story telling to try and justify the premium Space X is about to pay to acquire Twitter, I mean Tesla.
If used on public streets, these thrusters could easily maim/kill people- reckless to include them on a car.
The one with the actual rocket engine is not being sold to the public and Tesla website explicitly states it's not legal to drive it on public roads. It's mostly just a cool demo/prototype and I'm sure there will be privately run tracks that let people drive one.
The generally available car will have cold-gas thrusters which boost acceleration but is nothing like what was demo'd.
It's mostly just stock fraud and laying the way for the Space X acquisition of Tesla at a hyper inflated valuation.
And it's sure going to increase the blast radius when these get into a collision. Even if you can't fire the thrusters, that pressurized tank can't be safe.
Teslas already have very strict (annoyingly strict) gating keeping specific functionality off of public roads (Summon). The drag mode thruster-assisted boost will probably leverage that. I also imagine that cameras on the car would stop it from being engaged if it detects humans in its firing area even when not on public roads.
The flying trim will never be sold to general consumers. Even the rear-thruster trim is currently listed at a $250,000 pre-order fee, which is a deposit for a fraction of the full cost of the car. Final cost will be over $1M. Any of the thruster variants will be extremely rare; like, the one guy in your city that has one will show it off at car shows twice a year, McLaren P1, level of rare.
In a video by Hagerty’s, Tesla claimed that both variants will be sold, for whatever that’s worth.
Yeah they'll make a few dozen of them and sell them to people like Joe Rogan. There is zero chance that any individual who doesn't have the personal phone number of a Tesla leadership team member will be able to buy one of these.
So it's a car for wankers. Makes sense.
I’m no Musk fan but I found it cool and try to balance my negativity towards the person with what I’m seeing.
Plenty of ways to maim/kill people in traditional cars already and I doubt this will be the most common one in roadsters.
This seems less like a consumer product than a stock market demonstration of the supposed synergies of merging SpaceX and Tesla.
Why Musk would spend probably tens of millions of dollars on this prototype which clearly will never be drivable on roads. One explanation is he is a trillionaire and the 14 year old in him thinks it would simply be cool to do it.
I think there is a more rational explanation. Tesla sales have slowed, other companies are catching up, and if it weren't for import issues, Chinese cars would be eating Tesla's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet Tesla is trading at a 330 P/E and Musk has to do something to make it seem like Tesla is still light-years ahead of everyone else and just wait, that 330 P/E will be justified any quarter now. Just like shooting a roadster into deep space was just a PR stunt, this is a PR stunt to boost the brand with no actual market relevance.
> other companies are catching up
Catching up? BYD has already surpassed Tesla and looks like the gap is going to continue to grow.
It is because he is very desperate for nerds to think he is cool so he lies and does PR stunts to that end and it works
Absolutely, but an even more likely explanation is that he's going to "acquire" Tesla with Space X and pay a premium (on top of the 330 P/E!). The SEC in this country is completely useless. Sure you can't invest in private companies if you're not an "accredited investor" but Musk is free to scam trillions of dollars.
Is this your first time seeing a concept car?
with a preorder button, yes.
> One explanation is he is a trillionaire and the 14 year old in him
At this point it's not clear that there's anything other than a 14 year old in him. A greedy, sociopathic 14 year old.
Am I missing something? At what point did the car fly?
The thrusters were able to cushion a fall.
That seems useful in ruining the ending of Thelma and Louise, but isn’t really a flying car.
There is a video where it is flying over some other Teslas. Actually taking off, barrel roll and landing
It flies the same as a chicken. Cushion and long jumps but not flying as in flying car or plane.
More like a turkey.
There were multiple demos; its possible you only saw one, and then raced to comment about something you had incomplete knowledge about.
"It's not flying, it's falling with style!"
I think this is pretty unique demonstration for something that theoretically may be street legal one day.
yes it cushioned the fall, but not sure if it was overly modified beyond realistic car weight for production / public.
Yes, you missed the middle of the video.
We are a nation of dullards, entertained away from our real problems by billionaires jingling keys in our faces.
More like they've strapped us to the chair, and now are dangling the keys trying to convince us it's our moral failing that the keys are in our face.
A car that can make you, your friends, and your family deaf. Amazing.
That’s if it doesn’t kill you
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112657
Musk really is the master of fraud. Twitter gets bought by Space X to conceal the massive loss in valuation, Tesla gets pumped with endless "we'll have self-driving cars next year", for 10+ years... now that the Tesla bubble is finally popping he needs to dump it on the Space X/Twitter shareholders, so we get this demo of a thing that will never hit the road. Bag holders beware, Musk's masterpiece of market manipulation is about to execute with the merger of all his lies.
Twitter wasn’t bought to conceal the loss in valuation. It was bought so Elon can influence the populace with his narrative.
No, he bought it because he was contractually obliged to do so even after he tried to wriggle out of it.
I mean this isn't even ancient history, it only happened in 2022. He sent three termination notifications before it was determined that he had no grounds to refuse to buy.
FSD doesn't even work properly TEN YEARS after it was announced
still tries to murder passengers jumping across traffic at shadows
good luck with anything Musk, you are the beta tester, if you die they'll debug it, eventually
If you still believe FSD doesn't work, you're operating on outdated intelligence. Frankly, like a boomer saying that email doesn't work.
Oh, it doesn't require a person to continually monitor it now? I missed that change. Until that happens I don't think it qualifies as "full" self driving.
Only from a regulatory perspective. Anyone who drives a Tesla for long enough knows how to defeat the monitoring system, and doing so is extremely safe; significantly safer than a human driver. I would have no concerns summoning it autonomously over 100 miles, once the law allows for that to happen.
I've never crashed driving drunk so drunk driving is safer than driving sober
Well, you're insane for thinking that. Drunk driving is very unsafe, and population-level statistics don't lie. They're quite conclusive when it comes to grading the safety of drunk driving as being dangerous relative to sober driving, and Tesla's full self driving system as being safe relative to sober driving.
Where are the independently verified statistics for FSD being safer?
In a single 5 mile trip within the last month, an FSD Tesla I was in made four mistakes that were saved by the actions of other drivers on the road. I have concerns about you summoning it autonomously over 100 miles.
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It is a wonder how anyone thinks this is novel when there are so many other rocket cars in the market already
This "roadster" isn't in the market either, with or without the rockets. Or a folding roof.
I'd agree it's novel if it is, in fact, a rocket car. I'm skeptical about the car part, though. It's much less impressive if it's just a lightweight prop. I haven't seen the full presentation, though, to see if they drive it, if someone can climb in and so on.
After Elon almost died in 2000 when he lost control of his McClaren I wonder if the real reason for these thrusters isn't actually to recover when controlling this beast proves too much for the driver and it starts to spin out or accidentally launches into the air.