“Tesla Flying Car Prototype to be Unveiled Before End of Year”

Dur­ing a Joe Rogan three hour 15 minute long pod­cast with Elon Musk, post­ed at the week­end, the Tes­la CEO sud­den­ly blurt­ed out that the com­pa­ny is unveil­ing a pro­to­type of a fly­ing car before the end of the year, based around an updat­ed ver­sion of the Road­ster. The orig­i­nal car has not been in pro­duc­tion since 2012.

Rogan, not sur­pris­ing­ly, was some­what gob­s­macked by the news. He asked, “Why?” Musk flip­pant­ly replied his bil­lion­aire friend and high pro­file tech investor, Peter Thiel, “Wants a fly­ing car, so why not make him one?”

He con­tin­ued, “It’s crazy tech­nol­o­gy. It looks like a car, but has a cra­zier tech­nol­o­gy than a James Bond car.”

Rogan asked if it will have retractable wings. Musk was coy about reveal­ing any details of the design, say­ing this would be all explained at the unveil­ing.

He smiled, “I can’t do the unveil before the unveil. I think it has a shot at being the most mem­o­rable prod­uct unveil ever.”

While pour­ing a cof­fee, Musk con­tin­ued, “We need to make sure that it works. This is some crazy, crazy tech­nol­o­gy we got in this car. Crazy tech­nol­o­gy. Crazy-crazy. Is it even a car? I’m not sure.” He added, “It looks like a car. Let’s just put it this way, it’s cra­zier than any­thing James Bond … if you took all the James Bond cars and com­bined them, it’s cra­zier than that.”

Musk end­ed this par­tic­u­lar dis­cus­sion by invit­ing Rogan to check out the car short­ly before its unveil­ing.

Updat­ed Tes­la Road­ster on dis­play at the Tes­la Giga Texas man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty dur­ing the “Cyber Rodeo” grand open­ing par­ty on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Pho­to: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Get­ty Images)

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the press jumped on this news. It then spread like wild­fire across social media.

Web­site voice.lapaas.com wrote, “This is arguably one of the bold­est moves in mobil­i­ty this year. If Tes­la pulls it off, it could rede­fine what we expect from vehi­cles and from Tes­la itself. But the gap between demo and real prod­uct remains wide, while the tech­ni­cal, reg­u­la­to­ry and com­mer­cial hur­dles are real. For now, keep your eyes on the event, look for cred­i­ble footage and spec­i­fi­ca­tions, and treat the fly­ing car claim as a major poten­tial, but not yet guar­an­teed mile­stone.”

UK-based The Dai­ly Mail, added, “This is a huge depar­ture from pre­vi­ous Road­ster press releas­es. Tes­la first unveiled the next–generation suc­ces­sor back in 2017, and billed it as a record–smashing EV that could sprint from 0 to 60mph in 1.9 sec­onds and trav­el 620 miles on a charge. Pro­duc­tion was sup­posed to start in 2020. It was delayed mul­ti­ple times… and, in 2025, it still has­n’t reached the mar­ket.”

The Mail then states, “This isn’t the first time Musk has float­ed the idea. Back in 2018, he teased a ‘SpaceX pack­age’ for the Road­ster that would use cold–air thrusters — actu­al rock­et tech — to boost per­for­mance, improve han­dling, and maybe even ‘hov­er’ for short bursts.” 

Joe Rogan

Obvi­ous­ly, take this news with a pinch of salt, yet Musk is Musk. His track record speaks for itself.

voice.lapaas Asks the Ques­tions

: Exact Demo Tim­ing & Loca­tion — Musk’s “before end of the year” is vague. The spe­cif­ic event, what exact­ly will be shown (hov­er­ing, full flight, road/air tran­si­tion?) mat­ter.

: Tech­nol­o­gy Details — Will it be ver­ti­cal take-off/­land­ing (VTOL)? What kind of range, bat­tery, propul­sion? So far those details are not con­firmed.

: Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion & Safe­ty — Will the demo be ful­ly air-legal? Will it fly in pub­lic air­space or on a closed test facil­i­ty?

: Pro­duc­tion Time­line — A demo is dif­fer­ent from pro­duc­tion. Will Tes­la com­mit to a pro­duc­tion mod­el, and when?

: Mar­ket Impact — How will this affect Tesla’s stock, investor expec­ta­tions, com­peti­tor actions? A bold demo can boost sen­ti­ment, but also increase pres­sure.

Risks & Caveats

: Tes­la has made bold promis­es in the past (e.g., rob­o­t­axi, full-self-dri­ving) that have faced delays or reg­u­la­to­ry push­back.

: Tech­ni­cal chal­lenges — inte­grat­ing car + air­craft func­tions is com­plex (weight, safe­ty, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, cost).

: Reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment — Air traf­fic, licens­ing, road rules, fly­ing cars enter com­plex ter­rains.

: Pro­duc­tion via­bil­i­ty — a pro­to­type is one thing, scal­able pro­duc­tion is anoth­er.

: Pub­lic per­cep­tion — If the demo fails to deliv­er or is under­whelm­ing, it could harm Tesla’s rep­u­ta­tion.

Ini­tial­ly, if the unveil­ing is a suc­cess imag­ine the pos­i­tive out­come for the gen­er­al fly­ing vehi­cle indus­try. The world-wide pub­lic­i­ty will be enough to place elec­tric air taxis firm­ly on the public’s radar.

And as for oth­er per­son­al fly­ing vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers, ‘some’ must be quak­ing in their boots. For unfor­tu­nate­ly, Tes­la ‘could’ blow them out of the air.

News Sources

https://voice.lapaas.com/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk

(Top image: Elon Musk — Cred­it: Reuters)

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