Why Tesla needs its cars to fly

Tesla recently showed off a new version of its Roadster. Well, a new version of its old version of the Roadster, anyway. But this one flies! The Verge's Andy Hawkins joins the show to explain the last decade of the Roadster saga, make sense of the flying and kickflipping new vehicle, and cast out into the future of Tesla's cars for humans. If there even is one. Further reading: The incredible flying Tesla Roadster is just for show The Tesla Roadster flew, drove upside down, and hit 60mph in under a second Trump says Sundar Pichai talked him out of renaming the Atlantic Ocean 1Password lets AI agents use your passwords without seeing them The world’s first triple 200-megapixel cameraphone is great Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of cold gas thrusters. I'm your friend David Pierce, and today on the show, we're talking about the most recent Tesla Roadster reveal and why that car even exists in the first place. But first, here's everything else happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, October 22, 2026. President Trump loves renaming a body of water, and now he is apparently interested in rebranding, get this, the Atlantic Ocean. He said at a rally on Wednesday night that he reached out to Google CEO Sundar Pichai to feel him out about changing the name to either Trump or America Ocean. Seriously, that's a real thing that happened. Anyway, it appears Pichai said no, which means Google's moral compass points to somewhere between a great lake and an ocean.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Actually, what Pichai said, according to Trump, was, "Please don't ask us to do that." Anyway, Trump is still pushing to change New Mexico to New America and says he wants a river and an ocean. So I guess Pacific, watch your back. Meanwhile, OnePassword just announced a new feature that lets AI agents sign into your accounts without actually accessing your passwords directly. This is a big deal. Using an AI agent requires trusting that agent with an incredible amount of data and autonomy, and it's encouraging to see companies try to lessen that a little bit, whether it's payments or passwords or anything else. Attaching AI to systems you already trust is just better than constantly asking you to trust new systems. This should also make using agents quite a bit easier going forward,

• 1:31Speaker 00

  since you might not have to log in directly to everything all over again. OnePassword's UI seems kind of complicated, but this is still a step in a good direction. Finally, Oppo just launched the world's first 200-megapixel camera phone, called the Find X10 Pro Max. The Verge's Dominic Preston has used the thing and seems impressed by it. Most of us will never actually be able to buy this device, but this is yet another sign that there are still huge smartphone camera improvements to be had on all of our devices. I hope, eventually. You can read more about all of this at theverge.com. That is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, October 22.

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• 3:45Speaker 00

  So last week, Tesla held an event, after delaying it a couple of times, to show off the new Tesla Roadster. And it kind of did that, but mostly what it did was show a pretty remarkable demo of a car that could climb up a wall, go vertical, upside down, and then fly down to the ground. They showed one that could flip and jump over a bunch of other cars. Does that car bear any resemblance to the actual new Tesla Roadster that may or frankly may not ship at some point? Who knows? We didn't actually get all that much new information at this event, but what we did see was a pretty cool demo, and frankly, I just want to talk about it. But before we get into it, just a quick disclaimer that we should probably do before we talk about Elon Musk on this show, which is that I think there are a lot of problematic things

• 4:30Speaker 00

  about him as a person and a lot of problematic things about the things that he does, and yet it is still true that his companies are massively influential and his products are often very successful. And sometimes we have to talk about them. So we're going to try to be as straightforward about the pros and cons of all of this and about the Elon of it all, but we do have to talk about it. So with that, Andy Hawkins is going to come on. Let's get into it.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Andy Hawkins, welcome back to the show.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  Hello, good to be back.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Sometimes we get to talk about wild, weird things like bike buses, and then every once in a while we get to talk about really boring things, like flying cars.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  The bike bus won an Emmy.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  That's true. Congratulations, Emmy-winning Andy Hawkins. I should start introducing you this time.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Yes, I demand it.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Verge editor, Emmy winner, bike bus champion, Andy Hawkins.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  So we're here to talk about the Tesla Roadster, which I think is one of the strangest car stories in recent memory, culminating in this big event last week, where the car did or did not flip, did or did not fly, was or was not a car. We'll talk about all those things. But first, I want to just speed through the history of the Roadster, because the Roadster is actually a really interesting car in the whole history of Tesla. So give me a sense, just sort of very briefly, on what the Roadster has meant to Tesla over the course of its history. There's now a real generation and a fake generation. Run me through the Roadster so far.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So the Roadster was noteworthy because it was Tesla's first car. It was sort of this proof of concept that an electric-powered sports car could find an audience. And so when Tesla first got started, the Roadster was that first product. It was sort of their halo vehicle that then led into the flagship vehicle, which was the Model S. And then in 2017, while the company was introducing the semi truck for the first time.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I forgot about this semi.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. We'll get back to that. Elon came on stage and did his one more thing, thing that Steve Jobs obviously made famous, and brought out what they were calling at the time the second-generation Roadster. This was a, you know, sort of, design-wise, it looked a little sleeker. But I think what was really impressive to a lot of people at that 2017 event was that this was going to be this, like, you know, sort of like, the end-all, be-all of electric supercars. Like, there wasn't much of an electric supercar market at the time in 2017. And so Tesla was going to come in and build this electric second-generation Roadster and then really kind of just like make a statement about electric supercars. And this was going to have like, you know,

• 7:16Speaker 04

  0 to 60 time in perhaps less than one second and a 600-mile battery range. And just all these things that were just really, on the surface, seemed outlandish. But I think at the time, I think a lot of people believed, you know, Tesla was sort of viewed as being somewhat, as being able to make it happen, right? They were in the midst of the Model 3 rollout, which was, despite the production snags, was looking like it was going to be a real hit for the company. So I think that the company had a lot of goodwill at the time. And so people were willing to believe that this next-generation Roadster would indeed roll out in 2020, which was the initial promise.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Right. Spoiler alert, it didn't.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Didn't happen. Did not happen. That date got pushed many, many times. And now we're, you know, nine years later, after that initial announcement of the second-generation Roadster, and we got a demo of an entirely different car with an entirely different set of capabilities, and now a theoretical 2028 production time. So I think it's, you know, sort of, and obviously Tesla as a company, and Elon Musk as the CEO, much a different place than he was in 2017. I think that the goodwill is gone, but still, people are very excited. And then we got this demo that we saw last week. So-

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Obviously Tesla is famous for dates that do not come true. Do you chalk the Roadster up to normal Tesla delays? I feel like nothing from Tesla has ever shipped on time. Or is there something different about this Roadster that it took nine years? Like, looking at the car we've seen now, is there a reason that's obvious that it took nine more years than we thought it might?

• 9:09Speaker 04

  I think it's probably a combination of the insane level of expectations that Elon Musk apparently was delivering to his engineering team. Like, it just kept getting, he just kept upping the ante as these deadlines would slip past, right? Like, oh, it's late again, I'm so sorry, but now it's gonna be even faster. Oh, it's late yet again, but now it's gonna fly. And so I think-

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Those are two things that literally happened, by the way. Those are not hypothetical examples.

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Well, we'll get to that, too. But I do think that it was sort of like with the deadlines passing and Tesla just missing all of its, probably started breaking all of its promises to these reservation holders, people who were putting down $50,000, upwards of $250,000 to reserve one of the founder editions of the Roadster. These are essentially interest-free loans to the company that they were able to do whatever they wanted with. They had to keep sort of upping the ante and sort of like making the car seem even more ludicrous than it was. So I do think that it was a combination of sort of this engineering challenge that Elon was creating for his team. But also, I think the car just got, it became less interesting, right? They were in the midst of Model 3 and Model Y production.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  Then the Cybertruck came along, and then the Cybercab, and then AI, and the Optimus robot, and all these other things sort of like cropped up in the interim that sort of shifted into the center of the focus, whereas the Roadster just kind of got pushed further and further back onto, you know, and so sort of it was almost like out of range for a lot of people. So I think it was just like, and also in the interim, too, we now have an electric supercar market. There's the Rimac, and there's Bugattis that can go insanely fast. And there are these hypercars and these low-volume one-shots and all these other sort of like crazy engineering feats that all these other companies have come along to sort of supplant and replace the Roadster in a lot of people's imaginations.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  So I do think that that is a combination of like, the engineering challenge was insane. And then also the Roadster just kind of got less and less relevant as the years kind of slipped past.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  I think you just made the launch event make sense to me, right? Because I think if you're at a point where you're like, okay, this car is super late and the stakes for it have gone up over time. But also, we are launching this into a market that is going to be much less impressed by the car we showed them nine years ago. We have to blow everybody's minds if we want to live up to expectations. This is how you get the launch event. So last Thursday, this all builds to this big reveal that I think was supposed to happen a month ago. Even the launch events for the delayed cars get delayed. Tell me about this launch event.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, you know, it was undeniably pretty rad. You know, like, I've witnessed many, many Tesla events over the years.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  I feel like Tesla events are famously pretty awkward. It's like, they always start really late. It's Elon being kind of weird. He's many things, but he's not a particularly charismatic speaker.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  We got the famous incident of the Cybertruck with the broken window.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  Well, that one was great. That one's like an all-time live demo moment.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  But this one-

• 12:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I think that speaks to the awkwardness that you're referring to.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yes, very much so. Yeah, and so I think my expectations for what are these things gonna be in terms of sort of razzle-dazzle are very low. And this one feels like it was just all razzle-dazzle.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. It was a, it was a party trick. And it was a really impressive party trick at that. But I do think that, like, you know, aside from the fact that it was just a demo, you know, I think that once the next day sort of dawned, I think people were like, wait a second, you know? And I think a lot of things started, you know, people started realizing a lot of things about that demo. But yeah, so what we saw was, you know, a pretty absurd specs list, zero to 16 under a second, coal gas SpaceX thrusters, allegedly enabling sort of this flight that we saw, which I think is more of a graceful landing than a flight.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  It's falling with style. I don't know how nobody, maybe I'm the only one watching Toy Story right now, but I watched that thing and I'm like, this is Buzz Lightyear flying through the living room, falling with style. Like, what are we, this is what this is?

• 13:21Speaker 04

  That's the best-

• 13:21Speaker 00

  That's not flying, that's falling with style.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  That is the best analogy. All the parents out there will immediately get what you're talking about. Yeah, well, I mean, okay, so it can hop, right? So one of the demos was the Roadster sort of drove up to a lot, a line of Tesla's other models, right? The Model 3, the Model Y, the Cybercab, the Cybertruck, and the Semi. And it hopped up over and then did a kickflip over the cars and then landed on the other side. Arguably very cool, very cool thing. Apparently, all the people that were there, The Verge was not there, unfortunately. We don't get invited to these events by Tesla anymore because we're, I guess, too critical of the company. But, you know, everyone that was there seemed like they were very impressed by it.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  I guess everyone had to wear ear protection because these coal gas thrusters are extremely loud. And I should also note that the car did drive up a vertical ramp and then also upside down, where it stayed for a second before then flipping off the edge of the ramp and then landing again. So there was, I think, a couple of things that we need to note. There's obviously the SpaceX thrusters and the ultra-high-pressure air compression tanks that they have in the vehicle. But then there's also a separate technology, which is this fan technology that they're using, which I think is actually really interesting. You know, they're using the fans to create a lot of downforce that sort of basically, you know, sort of like glues the car to the road.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  That's how they were able to achieve sort of the vertical party trick and then also driving upside down. This is a technology that exists, right? We've seen some other proof of concepts, some other science experiments around fan cars as a way to improve acceleration time, improve handling and grip in cornering, and sort of like, performance in race situations. So it is, I think that what they are seizing on here is something that has been proven before. And I think that they're sort of taking it to that next level in the way that Tesla does, which is very interesting.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  So, okay, at the risk of asking a really stupid question, that car you just described, what actual resemblance does that bear to the actual Tesla Roadster that might actually exist someday in the future? Like, the debate on the internet has gone all the way from, this is the Tesla Roadster people will be able to buy, oh my God, it flies. That's clearly not correct. They said this car is not road legal. People were screenshotting videos of the bottom where there's just nothing in the car. Like, this is not the Roadster people will buy on the road. It's also not just a completely separate science experiment, as far as I can tell. So what is it? What car did we see doing all of these tricks?

• 16:07Speaker 04

  There's not a ton of information about the actual car that was used in the demo, although we did catch a glimpse of that bottom that you spoke of, where it did seem that the car was basically missing its entire battery. And if that's the case, the car would be obviously not be weighed down. EV batteries are incredibly heavy, the heaviest part of the car for the most part. And I think if they were to able, if they were removing that, I think that it raises some serious questions about the thrust and the flying and the SpaceX thrusters. Because I think what they're showing is a car that's not the car that they're purporting to actually sell to people.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  And the intimation was that this is the Roadster, right? They were not like, look at this cool thing we did. They're like, here's the Tesla Roadster.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Correct, yeah. It wasn't until after the event that the website updated and that we got some details about the different trim levels. They didn't really give any of that information out at the event itself, but there is actually, so what we got, and there was also a couple of videos. Hagerty put out a video interviewing Tesla's engineering executives, as well as a couple of other outlets. And they went into a little bit more detail about the technology behind this. So you can tell that we're not entirely dealing with smoke and mirrors here, that there is some real tech that's backing some of this up. But what I do think that is important to note is that that rocket trim, the one that they showed off doing the party tricks, flipping off of the ramp, jumping up over Tesla's other, the rest of Tesla's lineup,

• 17:29Speaker 04

  that's the supposed rocket trim that will be available invite-only, they say. Also, fine print, not legal for public use. So I mean, it's just sort of like, it's kind of all right there, right? You won't be able to just buy one. Even if you were like the wealthiest person in the world, you won't be able to just buy one. You need to have some sort of connection to Tesla to get one of these invites. And who knows how many of those are gonna go out? And then when you do have it, you can't drive it anywhere, or you at least can't use this party trick that, with the thrusters. So, you know, sorry to everyone who made, you posted an AI-generated video of themselves in a Tesla Roadster, leaping over, you know, traffic and gridlock. It's a nice idea, but it will never exist in real life.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  You'll never see any of these out on the road doing this stuff.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  I think of them a little bit like Formula One cars, in the sense that like, is it in some ways a real vehicle? Sure. Are you ever gonna see one on a road near you? No, right? Like, they exist for a purpose, they are sort of the shape of a car, but they do not exist to do car things. And that's fine. That's like, it's fine. The only part that I find frustrating is the intimation that, yes, this is the Tesla Roadster you've been waiting for for nine years. That's where you lose me.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Right, yeah. The messaging was very muddled, and I mean, that's, you know, that's classic Tesla, right? They were, they sell a product called full self-driving that is not actual full self-driving.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  That 10 years ago, they told us would drive us coast to coast without even needing to charge.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Exactly, you know, the real ones remember. But I think like, to me, the thing that really kind of just was the icing on the cake of this whole thing was if you look at the terms and conditions of the new Roadster, which also updated the website, and that was posted as well, right there, I think it was number four out of all the terms. It was only a two-page document. Number four basically said Tesla does not guarantee that it will deliver the version of the car you ordered, or that it will deliver any version of the car that you ordered.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  They are already absolving themselves of missing deadlines, missing production timelines. I just don't understand how anyone could have any sort of trust in this company that this car will eventually come out when they've already missed nine years of deadlines. And now they are sort of just openly admitting in their own terms and conditions, their own legalese, that this is, this car may never see, you know, the light of day. So it's just, I don't know, I've lost the ability to be shocked by Tesla, but I am still somewhat shocked by this.

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• 23:49Speaker 00

  Did we learn anything about the actual Roadster? The car that they claim is going to start shipping to people who bought it nine years ago in 2028? Did we get any new information about the actual streetcar?

• 24:02Speaker 04

  That car is dead. I mean, that version of the car that we saw in 2017, there were some prototypes made. The one that people were initially putting down deposits for, that's gone. That's not, that is not going to be in production anymore.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  So now they're saying the only Roadster is this one with all these fancy things that you might not be able to get, and we might not ship anyway.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  The design, for the design, it's this new sort of cyberfied design, right? With the light bars, and it sort of looks like a Cybertruck in some ways.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  I gotta say, I liked it way better before. I went back and looked at some of the pictures from that first reveal of the Roadster 2. That car is hot.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  It's got some like nice, organic, flowing lines to it. This one's all sharp angles. It looks a lot more sort of like a classic wedge-shaped Lamborghini, if you will. But no, so they will sell a base, it's apparently, it's not on the website, but one of the executives did say that there will be a base model version of this car without all of the party chicks, without the cold gas thrusters. That still will be a very impressive car. They're saying, you know, a 0-60 time in under two seconds. But I think if you want the fan technology, you gotta go up a trim level. And then if you want the rocket technology, then you gotta be in this rarefied, whatever it is, group of invite-only people.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Okay. Oh, and I saw they also ratcheted the range way down, right? The 600-mile dream is long gone.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  That, to me, was the biggest crime of all, was that they sold people in the dream of 600 miles of range. And then they were like, oh, no, wait, it's actually just gonna be 300. Which, I mean, like, I think everyone kind of knew at some point that that was a fantasy of 600 miles, especially with battery technology being what it is today. But yeah, that sort of went, came and went with very little acknowledgement.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you mentioned that a lot about the car market has changed in nine years. We've talked about it a bunch on this show, all the headwinds against the EV market in general. You could almost argue, and I think you did almost argue, that this car just doesn't need to exist at all, that kind of the world has no use for the Roadster anymore. What do you think this car doesn't do in 2026 that maybe it needs to, or that it would have done nine years ago?

• 26:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think my argument there was that, you know, that electric performance has since been sort of proven out, right? We've got Formula E, we've got all of these sort of like very impressive supercars that, you know, sound like they're straight out of science fiction, things like, you know, the Rimac Nevara and Pina Farina's Batista. BYD has got an insane-sounding electric performance car that they came out with. And then you've got, you know, like a whole class already of just high-performance, luxury EVs like Porsche and Audi and Mercedes. And then even just like a level down,

• 26:47Speaker 04

  you've got really like impressive performance cars from Hyundai and Kia.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  I just wanna say, by the way, this is now two opportunities you've had to name the Ferrari Luce, and you haven't either time. And I just, to all our Ferrari fans, just no, just email Andy and not me. That's all.

• 27:01Speaker 04

  I'm sorry, the Luce is still in the Roadster category. It has yet to reach a single customer, so I can't, I legally cannot acknowledge it as a real car.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Fair enough.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  But yeah, I just think that like we've seen, like, you know, since that sort of initial 2017 announcement, like the electric performance space has really kind of proven itself out. I mean, Tesla itself, right? They put out the Model S Plaid, which had like an under-two-second 0-60 acceleration. I mean, just like lots of, you know, like, that's a car that they already put out. So it's sort of like kind of undercut the purpose or the reasoning behind the Roadster, which I think is why they ended up going with this more SpaceX-coded ludicrous. And if you wanna talk about the SpaceX element of all this, let's not forget Elon, CEO of SpaceX, or I'm sorry, the owner of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla, they're long rumored, he wants to merge these companies. And I think like demonstrating synergy between the two companies

• 27:56Speaker 04

  is maybe what this demo was really all about to begin with. Who's to say?

• 28:02Speaker 00

  So that's one answer to the next thing I was thinking about, which is kind of why do this at all? Like, you were talking earlier about how not only has the world sort of left the Roadster behind, but so has Tesla in a lot of ways, right? Like, this is a company that has declared itself to be a robot company, and they're off doing the Cybercab, and they're doing the Cybertruck. And the company that they were in 2017 is sort of unrecognizable to the company that they are now. So I don't actually think anyone would have been surprised if we had just never heard of the Roadster again. And they either gave people their money back or didn't. And I'm like, I don't know. I didn't give them any money, I don't know. But that if they had just sort of let it fade into the background as they moved on to humanoid robots and all the other things that they claim Tesla is about right now.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Is the SpaceX thing the most logical answer to why keep banging on this drum at all? Like, why, why keep making the Roadster at all?

• 28:57Speaker 04

  It, it makes a lot of sense to me, but I, I do think that there is like some effort to continue to market Tesla, especially after a particularly bad couple of years for the company in terms of vehicle sales. They're kind of a little bit on the upswing, although not really. It's been a, a tough road since Trump was elected and the EV credits, tax credits went away and sales kind of cratered, obviously due to the protests against Elon Musk and against Tesla. I do think that there is an effort, the company sees an effort to market itself continually on the, on the vanguard, right? As a future forward company, you know, their, their strategy documents talk a lot about the future and abundance

• 29:39Speaker 04

  and creating sort of this abundant future where there, there's, you know, sort of endless supplies of clean energy and electric mobility and we're going to Mars and all that fun stuff. And I think that maybe Tesla and Elon Musk in particular can feel some of that slipping away, given like sort of some of the difficulties that the company's had. So I do think that they needed to sort of put on a good show and you can't really do that with the semi truck because it's just a truck, although it is, it honestly is among the more impressive products in Tesla's lineup right now. The Cybercab is still very much a science project in a lot of ways, although there are dozens in Texas today. It does seem like that there's going to be some limitations and, and how quickly the company is going to be able to scale its self-driving division.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. As we've learned, the gap between dozens and everywhere is monstrous.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Yes. It's as big as, what is it? Snake River Canyon that Elon has said that he wants the Roadster to jump over in a recreation of the Evel Knievel stunt from the 1970s. We'll put that one on the calendar.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  One of the things our commenters kept saying about the event was, uh, this just proves that Elon Musk has the sensibilities of a 14-year-old boy. And like, boy, is that ever true.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  I think like honestly, it's a seven-year-old boy. Uh, no, no, no insult to 14-year-olds out there. I think they're a little bit more sophisticated. Uh, but no, yeah, I do, I think, I think that, you know, there's some, there's some logic to the, to this, to the merger, the SpaceX Tesla merger, uh, theory. But then I think it's also just sort of like, you know, Tesla's kind of in a rut, uh, you know, and all, all the good engineers in the world are, are sort of going into AI and robotics. And there's not really, you know, the, the EV, uh, industry is shrinking in the United States. And so I feel like that they're probably are very concerned about their ability to retain talent, uh, and also to, to hire new people. And I think that there's maybe some element of this event that was designed specifically at, hey, Tesla is still a really cool place to work.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Uh, and look at the, some of the things that we can do. This is so much fun. Come work with us.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  So in that sense, actually, the, the Roadster kind of occupies the same space it always has, right? Is that it is, it is a kind of pinnacle. It is, it is a thing that gets you to the next thing. It is like, it is so cool and impractical that it is designed to like bring people along for the metaphorical ride in that case.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's like a perpetual excitement engine, right? Like it just functions more as like a way to like make the company look cool and futuristic to people also with seven year old sensibilities about what is cool and futuristic. Uh, and then it's also just like, you know, if they can continue to get people to, to plop down these gigantic, uh, interest-free deposits for reservations for this car that will never come out. I mean, that's just an interest-free loan program for Tesla. Uh, that's, you know, probably pretty good for their bottom line. So I think that they, they have like a, a couple of irons in the fire here for why, why the Roadster still remains relevant to the company.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Please don't deposit money you can't afford to lose for a Tesla vehicle. It's just, that's all I will say.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  No.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Um, last thing, Musk's next big promise here is that this is the last Tesla to be built for humans. Do you buy it?

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Uh, I mean, you know, the Cybertruck was, uh, not, not a great success.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  And they discontinued the Model S and the Model X. So I feel like the company is certainly telling us something about what they feel, uh, is the future of human driving. And while the Cybercab, uh, is in production and, you know, there are some of them out on the road, uh, it still is a very big question as to what is the future of that particular vehicle. So I think we need to sort of see, you know, it's, and if anything, the Model 3 and the Model Y continue to print money for the company, right? So they, they have a little bit of runway to figure things out. Uh, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something come back in the future, right? Uh, a revamped Model S, for example, or even some, you know, there's the, uh, you know, there's talk about,

• 33:37Speaker 04

  uh, you know, the, uh, a real cheap EV. Like if Tesla actually went to work on like a Model 2, like a $25,000 electric vehicle that was just sort of bare bones and did the job of a Model 3 with maybe a little bit less content and a little bit, little bit less, uh, you know, design work into it. That could be something that could be really successful for the company. I don't see Elon Musk making that decision, but you know, maybe if he is the CEO of Musk Holdings and somebody else is left in charge of Tesla, uh, at some point in the future, maybe those decisions, uh, change. Who knows?

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's fair. There does seem to be a, a race toward Tesla doesn't want to be a car company anymore, fairly clearly. Self-driving is taking longer than anybody wanted. And at some point they're going to need a hit again. And it, and the, how those things all crash into each other, I think you're right, is going to kind of answer this question.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  All right. So here, here's a scenario for you. Elon Musk calls you. He says, Andy, I love your work. You were so great on the Vergecast the other day. Uh, I want to give you the first ride in the cold thruster car. We're going up the ramp, you and me. Are you getting in? You're, you're taking the first demo?

• 34:48Speaker 04

  I gotta check my life insurance policy first. I don't, I don't know. I don't know where, if this is covered or not, you know, like, it just seems like, just like, all I imagine is like, you know, every time there's like a, a, a cool car chase in a movie and they have that shot from inside the car as it's like flipping over off a cliff or something like that. And you just see like all of the things in the car flying through the air, like, you know, your, your Diet Coke and your, uh, your keys and everything like that, and your backpack and your purse. It's just like, that's, is that what we want? Really? Is that what people wanted? Is, is to like do flips in their car? That seems awful.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  That's how you go through red lights now. You just launch yourself over and spill everything in your car.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  That said, for The Verge, I would do anything. So strap me in, baby. I'm ready to go.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  There you go. Elon, you heard it here first. Andy, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Thanks, David.

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• 38:38Speaker 00

  All right. Thanks again to Andy. Before we go, one more thing. I just want to give you like a life tip that I've been trying recently and it's been really great. This life tip is essentially to just keep a list of things that you like. Recently, when I watch a movie that I like, I've just been writing it down on a list. And when I find a TV show that I like, it goes on the list. When I find an article I like somewhere on the web, it goes on the list. Just a sort of store of all of my favorite stuff. And I have found that in a world filled with AI, this turns out to be hugely useful. Like recently, I've just been going to Claude and being like, hey, look at the list of music that I like and recommend some new music. And it actually happens to work really well. And I was doing this a lot while I was on parental leave of being like, hey,

• 39:22Speaker 00

  I have watched these 10 movies in the last two weeks. What movies do you think I should watch? For some reason, that led me down a real rabbit hole of like apocalypse movies. I watched 2012 and San Andreas and The Day After Tomorrow. And Claude just kept being like, here's another movie about how the world ends. I have no notes. It was awesome. Most of those movies are terrible and they're an incredibly good time while holding a baby at 2 o'clock in the morning. But I think people get into AI and start becoming like obsessive hoarders of data and you get into personal knowledge management and having a second brain. And I think that can just make everybody kind of go overboard with all of this stuff. But one very good thing is just having a store of things that you think are good, that you like, that you can then plug into these systems in order to get more of these things.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  Ever since the beginning of LLMs, I have liked to use them for recommendations. If you're just like, hey, I like this band, this band and this band. What other bands might I like? That's actually a thing LLMs in particular are really well equipped to do. So do that, do that as aggressively as you can. It's also fun to just have a list of movies that you like. So when somebody's like, oh, what have you watched recently that you like? You can just go look at the list because if you're anything like me, I read a book or watch a movie and then instantly forget about it forever. And it's been helpful to have an actual place to go and be like, here is all the stuff that I like recently. I can revisit it. It's delightful. So you can keep all that in a text file. There's also an app called My Mind that I really like for this. It's expensive, but it does some really cool AI organization stuff too. But that's it. My recommendation for this week, if you listen to nothing else I say,

• 40:49Speaker 00

  and that's totally fair, is just make a list of stuff that you like. It'll come in handy. All right. That's it for the show. Thank you again to Andy for being here. And thank you as always for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, feelings, feedback, if you pre-ordered a roadster and you want to tell me all about it, vergecastoftheverge.com is the email. 866-VERGE11 is the hotline. We love hearing from you about all this and everything else. And as always, the best thing you can do to support all of this is to subscribe to The Verge, theverge.com/subscribe. You get ad-free podcasts, you get exclusive newsletters, everything else we do, verge.com/subscribe. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer and Travis Tharchuk. See you tomorrow. Rock and roll.

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