I maintain that the entire event was to create a trail of evidence that justifies merging Tesla and SpaceX. No car will ever ship.

You can hear it in the voices of the creators, when they're giving an overview of the car to MotorWeek and other car media outlets. 99% focused on the rocket and battery tech/innovation, almost zero about the actual driving characteristics of the car, or that it -is- a car. Seems more like a rolling marketing mule.

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vannevar 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The specs of the base (non-rocket-powered) car are pretty mediocre: RWD-only with 320 mile range. That's not terribly impressive in 2026, by 2028 it will be obsolete on delivery. The styling can charitably be described as generic. I agree, I don't think they have any intention of making this car.

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HarHarVeryFunny an hour ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair the claimed ~1.6sec 0-60 acceleration speed is impressive - this is the benefit of electric - although if you have enough money you can already do that today in the way sexier looking Rimac Nevera R.

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jacquesm 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

Which in practice you will never ever do...

	▲	HarHarVeryFunny 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I guess you could rent a trace track to give it a try, but yeah ... Supercars are more for posing than being very practical. Bughatti Veyron tire life at top speed is 15 MINUTES.

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skybrian an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

How much electric sports car owners care about increasing range beyond 300 miles or so? It seems hard to believe that such a car would be obsolete.

	▲	serf 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		this is one point I agree on. It's about right there with other sports cars rated ranges; 911/M4 get around 300-350 and the Corvette hits 400ish. a road rally from LA to LV is 270ish miles. What else do you need a hyper-car-thing for? Now we just need to get some goofy Musk tunnels involved so there's a reason to have the fan suction. (aside from breaking the windows of traffic behind you with road debris)

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andrewtbham 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

100 percent agree... PR stunt to assist acquisition of Tesla so Musk can gain control of Tesla

	▲	jgalt212 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I assume you mean de facto and de jure.

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dgellow an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, that’s also the conclusion I arrived to. It’s a clear step to justify the merger

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andai an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

If you will know them by their fruits, then the merger is objectively awesome.