What was it that Elon Musk said last year about a future Tesla car possibly being able to “fly short hops”? Well, it seems like it’s already happening.
Video footage from Canada this week shows one of Elon Musk’s electric vehicles flying majestically through the air before returning to terra firma with a bump.
OK, we’ll level with you. This wasn’t some test version of the next Tesla Roadster that one of Musk’s team took out for a joy ride one evening. It’s just some dude in a Tesla who hit a railroad crossing at speed, resulting in the kind of short hop that Musk perhaps has in mind for his next-generation sports car.
The short flight was captured by a security camera in the city of Barrie, Ontario. Cops arrived at the scene of the accident to find a “demolished 2016 four-door Tesla,” and presumably one helluva shocked guy who didn’t expect his car to take off like that.
Luckily, the car’s two occupants escaped serious injury, but the driver can probably expect some damage to his wallet soon as cops charged the 46-year-old local man with dangerous driving in the single motor vehicle smash.
The official report from Barrie Police Service said that further investigation “determined the vehicle had been traveling at a high rate of speed” just before it crashed. The video certainly confirms this.
It continued: “When the vehicle crossed the steep incline leading up to the railway tracks … [it] became airborne and crashed over 100 feet into the opposing lane. The impact of the crash forced the vehicle to skid across the roadway and hit a tree in a nearby school parking lot.”
Roadster tease
Prior to his “short hop” Roadster tweet in November last year, Musk also teased fans with the idea of a “SpaceX option package” for the upcoming sports car, featuring “10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly…”
Clearly, Musk has a thing about flying cars. And considering his dogged determination to follow through on a range of ambitious plans, we refuse to rule out the possibility of the entrepreneur entering the flying-car race at some point in the future. And no matter what he comes up with, it’s bound to be better than this abysmal effort.
