Before you check your calendar to see if it’s April 1, we can assure you this isn’t a joke.
Elon Musk actually revealed plans for creating a hovering Tesla car.
The Tesla CEO divulged the ideas during an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
READ MORE! Elon Musk almost sold Tesla to Google for what would have been a huge loss
For a long time, Elon Musk said he wanted to offer a rocket thruster package to increase the already ludicrous speed of the second-generation Tesla Roadster.
But during the interview with comedian, Joe Rogan, Musk revealed he wants to make thrusters to make the Roadster hover, too.
“I want it to hover, and I was trying to figure out how to make this thing hover without, you know, killing people,” Musk told Joe Rogan.
“Maybe it can hover like a meter above the ground, or something like that. If you plummet it’ll blow out the suspension but you’re not gonna die.”
It’s an extraordinary idea, and one that’s sure to create a headache for safety regulators if Musk actually goes through with it.
Whether or not it’ll happen – who knows – but Musk has a history of pushing boundaries with Tesla’s cars.
In the past, he’s made choices that have forced regulators to act.
Take the yoke-shaped steering wheel for example, which was reportedly a surprise to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when it featured on the redesigned Model S sedan and Model X SUV.
Back to the hovering Tesla, though, and Rogan asked Musk during the interview whether it would be able to travel while it’s hovering.
“Yeah,” Musk responded.
“So you’ll be able to go six feet off the ground and go how fast?” Rogan probed.
“Well, you go pretty fast but you’re gonna be time limited,” Musk revealed.
If you’re wondering what wizardry the hovering Tesla will use, Musk goes on to explain.
“There’s gonna be a super high pressure, like ultra high pressure, air bottle. A high pressure carbon pressure vessel at, I don’t know, over 10,000 PSI or something like that, Musk detailed.
“I’m confident we could do a thruster where the license plate flips down, you know James Bond style, and there’s a rocket thruster behind it and that gives you three tons of thrust.”
Laughing, Rogan then queried, “For acceleration – so that would be on the ground?”
“That would be on the ground and this thing would move like a bat out of hell,” Musk stated.
On the subject of James Bond, in 2013 Musk bought 007’s submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me and pledged to turn it into an electric submarine.
He still owns the car, but hasn’t responded to repeated requests for comment about whether he’s achieved that goal.
