Elon Musk wants Tesla’s new sports car to make 007 proud.
The billionaire electric car tycoon said he is working to defraud the upcoming Tesla Roadster with rocket technology so it can float above the ground.
“I’m trying to figure out how to float this thing without, you know, killing people,” Musk said on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast released Thursday.
“I thought maybe we could float it, but not too high, so like it might float a meter above the ground or something,” he added. “When you plummet, you blow out the suspension, but you don’t die.”
Tesla has been working on an updated version of the Roadster – the first electric car for the general public – for several years now.
The Silicon Valley company expects to complete engineering of the model this year and hopes to ship it in 2022, Musk said.
The Roadster would be able to move through the air while floating above the ground if Musk’s hovering experiments are successful, he said. He claimed Tesla would offer a “SpaceX option package”, apparently named after Musk’s rocket company, that will equip the car with a high-pressure fuel barrel and “a pair of thrusters.”
If gliding fails, the Roadster may still have rear thrusters that make it “move like a bat out of hell” on the road, Musk said.
“I’m sure we can make a thruster where the license plate flips down, you know, James Bond style, and then the rocket propeller behind it, and that gives you three tons of thrust,” he said.
Tesla first unveiled the new Roadster in 2017. The following year, SpaceX launched Musk’s personal Roadster into space. The car passed Mars for the first time last fall.
Tesla shares were down 0.6 percent in premarket trading at $ 807.09 from 7am Friday.