The ‘SpaceX package’ comes with a 1.9 second claimed 0-60 time.
Cold air thrusters are three words I’ve never heard used to describe a car until the Tesla Roadster. It still seems far out of left field, but Elon Musk is insistent on making it happen. What’s more, he claims the car will do a neck snapping sub-2 second 0-60 spring with the thrusters equipped. Now, he’s revealed yet another piece of information about the ‘SpaceX package’.
The rear-facing thrusters will be hidden away under the license plate. According to Musk, that’s where Tesla plans to put them, in response to Marques Brownlee after he posted some not-too-subtle images of the Roadster with some weapons-grade rocket thrusters.
In his typical short fashion, Musk said the SpaceX package would be “more subtle”. I’m certain it will be, as badass as those images are. In the past, Musk also said these thrusters would “dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking and cornering”. But that’s not all, since the thrusters “maybe even allow a Tesla to fly.” Yep, that’s the sort of Tesla Roadster Musk would love to build.
As great as that would be, we’ll have to see what the finished product actually looks like. With the SpaceX package, Tesla will reportedly remove the Roadster’s rear seats — which don’t look like they’d be terribly useful anyway — and replace them with an air tank and compressor.
Coming in 2021?
Tesla is supposed to bring the Roadster to production by 2021 or so. The all-electric hypercar is pegged to start around $200,000, with a Founders Edition that’s priced at $250,000. Now, Tesla delayed the original launch date because of the Model Y, but it behooves Tesla to launch the Roadster sooner rather than later. By that time, we’ll see much more competition, so it will be interesting to see how this car stacks up. If it has a unique selling point like cold air thrusters, it may yet come out ahead of the pack.
