Tesla unveils long-delayed Roadster developed with SpaceX, fueling merger speculation

JUST IN: Tesla unveils its long-delayed next-generation Roadster, developed with SpaceX, fueling fresh speculation of a merger between the two companies.

Tesla's new Roadster just did a backflip in mid-air and hovered.

Nine years after Elon Musk started taking deposits, the car finally showed up, and you can see it here, a white two-seater vaulting off a ramp above a stage in Texas. Zero to sixty in under a second, by Tesla's own timer, powered by actual SpaceX rocket thrusters. Musk's line on stage, this is not necessarily a safety-optimized car. You don't say.

The venue mattered as much as the stunt. They held it at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, and Musk called it a collaboration between the world's best car company and the world's best rocket company. With SpaceX public since June and Barclays predicting a merger before the end of the year, that's a two trillion dollar hint.

Production is promised for 2028, no price, no word on whether it's street-legal. The deposit, though, is fifty thousand dollars, due now.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.