// WIRED US/UK — MODA & SOCIETÀ
Here’s Exactly How Tesla Made Its New 230-Mph Car ‘Fly’
Last night, with considerable showmanship, Tesla CEO Elon Musk proudly unveiled the Roadster 2 just nine years after first announcing the car, and made it “fly.” While undeniably impressive, you could also describe the spectacle as Tesla making its long-delayed luxury car “do a big hop” and then, as Buzz Lightyear would say, “fall with style.”
During the reveal in McGregor, Texas, at SpaceX’s rocket development and testing facility, the two-seater Roadster 2 launched itself over the automaker’s entire lineup, shot from 0 to 60 mph in less than a second, and then drove upside down off a high ramp to then flip over mid-air and land back down on the ground, cushioning its rapid descent using on-board thrusters.
All this was pure gold for social clips (though at the time of publication, Tesla’s stock price was down after the event), but how did Tesla make its new EV prototype perform these tricks? Tesla vehicle engineering head Lars Moravy went into detail with auto lifestyle and insurance brand Hagerty before yesterday’s event, explaining how the Roadster 2 works.
The Roadster 2's gravity-defying demonstration in Texas used a combination of suction and rocket thrust.
Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer since 2008, designed the angular exterior. He also helmed the aesthetic of the Cybertruck, Models S, X, 3 and Y, as well as the Semi. Blacked-out windows obscured any view inside the EV, which carried no human driver anyway because, as Musk said, Tesla wanted “to make sure we don’t kill anyone” during the gravity-defying demonstration.
The Roadster 2 will be rear-wheel drive only, a departure from Tesla’s track record of all-wheel drive EVs. Two motors will deliver over a megawatt of power (1,341 horsepower) and over 1,400 Newton-meters (Nm) of torque, meaning this car will have more torque and power than a three-motor Plaid. But all of that power goes through just the rear wheels.
The car will be light, at “just under 1,700 kilos” (under 2 tons), according to Moravy, not significantly heavier than the original 1,300 kg (1.4 tons) Roadster, despite a larger size.
Tesla claims a range of over 300 miles for the Roadster and hopes to mitigate this distinctly average range by also giving the EV the fastest-charging battery the automaker has ever produced, supposedly capable of zipping from 15 to 80 percent in 10 minutes.
At a 2013 auction, Elon Musk bought the iconic "Wet Nellie" Lotus Esprit S1 submarine car from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me for just shy of $1 million. Musk is so taken with his Bond memorabilia that it apparently inspired one of the Roadster 2's key abilities.
That submarine Bond car has four propellers at its rear, so Tesla decided to ape this with four 20-kilowatt fans on the Roadster 2. Moravy says these fans break the laws of tire physics and dramatically increase the EV's traction by becoming what Tesla calls the car’s “sucker system.” Four independent replaceable skirts drop down on the sides of the car, allowing the Roadster 2 to stick (or suck) to the road at lower speeds where its aerodynamic wings aren't yet contributing to downforce. Moravy claims the system can produce over two Gs in a corner when accelerating, even below 50 mph.