Myths · 2026-10-17
A rocket-powered car sounds fake. The physics says otherwise.
The Professor says
Tesla's Roadster cold-gas thruster demo was faked. A car cannot drive up a ramp, hang upside-down, or do nought to sixty in about a second.
Fact Check
The demo was real. At the 15 October launch the Roadster drove up a C-shaped ramp, hung upside-down, jumped and hovered on cold-gas thrusters. Thrusters push the car directly, so they do not rely on tyre grip - the normal limit on how fast a car can launch. Nought to sixty in about a second works out at roughly 2.5 g. The catch: a tank of compressed gas empties in seconds.
Sources
Made with AI. The characters are fiction. The facts are checked.
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