Ferrari’s CEO just gave Tesla a perfect score. Twice. Benedetto Vigna, speaking by video link from a Ferrari client event in India to the Quattroruote Next industry forum in Milan on October 20, gave Tesla’s Roadster reveal a perfect ten for technology and another for presentation. He then told European automakers, his own company included, “We have to keep dreaming.”
Nice line. It also happens to help Ferrari, and the Roadster’s stunt reel skips the parts owners will actually live with.
What Tesla Actually Showed
The second-generation Roadster first appeared in November 2017 with a 2020 delivery target. It finally resurfaced on October 15 at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, looking nothing like the original. The 2017 car promised four seats. The new car seats two at most, and the top version seats one.
Tesla’s Roadster page lays out a base car and optional “augments”:
- Performance: the road-going version, with active aerodynamics and a fan-driven suction system.
- Thrust: adds rear cold-gas thrusters for launches Tesla says get under one second to 60 mph. On the night, Tesla ran a timed 0.81-second sprint.
- Rocket: invitation-only and single-seat, with 10 thrusters arranged around the body for lift and rotation. Tesla says it isn’t available in every region and isn’t approved for public roads.
Reservations cost $50,000 for Performance and $250,000 for Thrust. There’s still no final price. Elon Musk says production begins in 2028.
The Engineering, Minus the Smoke Machine
“Cold-gas thruster” sounds like rocket science, but the principle is closer to a scuba tank with a hole in it. Nothing burns. The car carries compressed air in carbon-fiber overwrapped pressure vessels, or COPVs. Tesla engineering chief Lars Moravy described roughly 600 liters of storage feeding the nozzles. Open the valves and the escaping air pushes the car the other way.
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That approach makes huge forces possible in short bursts, which is exactly what a launch, a jump, or a mid-air flip needs. The catch is endurance. A tank empties quickly, and refilling it to the pressures COPVs typically hold takes a serious compressor, not a gas-station air pump. Expect “how many launches per fill” and “how long to recharge” to be the specs Tesla is slowest to publish.
The suction system is old racing technology with new hardware. Chaparral’s 2J and Brabham’s BT46B “fan car” both sucked themselves to the track decades ago, and both were quickly banned from competition. Tesla is effectively putting a banned race-car idea on a road car.
Carbon Tanks Have an Expiration Date
Pressure vessels age. Carbon-composite breathing-air cylinders used by firefighters, for example, come with mandatory periodic retesting and a finite service life. No regulator has told us what rules a COPV-filled road car will follow.
The closest federal rule on the books is FMVSS 304. It sets integrity standards for compressed natural gas fuel containers, not air tanks used for propulsion. Under U.S. self-certification, Tesla will have to show how stored-energy tanks behave in a crash, a fire, and a decade of potholes.
Insurers will want answers too. Underwriters price risk from data, and there’s zero claims history for a production car that fires compressed-air jets. Founders who put down early deposits should budget for specialist coverage. Anyone hoping to drive a Thrust car on a public road should watch closely for state-by-state approval decisions, because Tesla itself calls that version a limited, race-oriented release.
Why a Ferrari CEO Cares
Vigna isn’t a romantic carried away by a light show. He’s a physicist who ran a sensor business before taking over Maranello, and he has his own stake in this argument.
On May 25, Ferrari unveiled the Luce in Rome. It’s the brand’s first all-electric car, with four motors, four doors, five seats, and exterior design handed to Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s LoveFrom collective instead of Ferrari’s in-house studio. At about 2,260 kg, it’s the heaviest Ferrari ever built, and purists let Ferrari hear about it.
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So when Vigna argued in Milan that outside perspectives made the Luce better, and that risk-taking is the price of real innovation, he was defending his own car as much as praising Tesla’s. Applauding Musk’s showmanship is a way of saying that an electric Ferrari designed by outsiders belongs in the same conversation about daring.
Tesla’s Roadster Promises, Graded
Tesla has made Roadster promises before: 2020 deliveries, a four-seat cabin, a 1.9-second 0-60 time. The new car blows past that last figure on paper, but a demonstration on Tesla’s own timer isn’t the same as an independently verified production car. Ferrari, meanwhile, has a real EV in hand and customer deliveries scheduled.
Vigna’s ten out of ten was for a presentation, and presentations are the one thing Tesla has never struggled to deliver. The grade that matters arrives in 2028, if the cars do.
Would you put $250,000 down on a Thrust car before Tesla says how many launches you get per fill?
Images Via: Tesla
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