Tesla Engineer Confirms New Roadster 'Really Sucks'

It is rare for a car company to be this honest, and rarer still for the honesty to be the sales pitch. At the October 15, 2026 reveal of Tesla's new Roadster, the company's vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, described the car's suction system in terms no marketing department would ever approve. The New York Post reports his words: "This car really sucks. This car could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. It could suck a tennis ball through a hose pipe."

He was not being modest. The Roadster's fan suction system pulls up to 2G of downforce — twice the force of gravity — which is what let the prototype drive upside down on a curved ramp during the demonstration, clinging to the track like a slot car. EV Central notes the same system is what allows cornering beyond the roughly 1.26G that tires alone can manage. The car, in other words, does not merely grip the road. It inhales it.

The rest of the evening was equally unsubtle. The Roadster, using SpaceX-developed cold-gas thrusters, flipped in midair, performed the company's "kick flip" over its own model lineup, and clocked a claimed 0 to 60 mph run in 0.81 seconds — with no human driver inside, because Musk did not want to, in the Post's phrasing, "kill anyone." Musk conceded the car is "not necessarily a safety-optimised car" and that flying it may not be "legal in all jurisdictions." Fast Company adds that the invite-only Rocket trim, the one that actually flies, is "not approved for public road use."

There is a certain elegance to a $50,000-deposit car whose chief engineer describes it with a playground insult and whose chief executive describes it as a legal gray area. The 2017 version of this car promised 620 miles of range, four seats, and a $200,000 price tag by 2020. The 2026 version offers more than 300 miles, two seats, no price, and production in 2028. What it does offer, beyond dispute, is suction.

Tesla has finally built a car that lives up to its own description. It really sucks. It just sucks upward, sideways, and — briefly, over a Semi — through the air.

The underlying reporting is filed in the Evidence Locker: New York Post (Oct 16, 2026); EV Central (Oct 16, 2026); Fast Company (Oct 16, 2026); TechCrunch (Oct 15, 2026).