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This is a reconstruction, not Tesla footage or recorded telemetry. The timing, dimensions, and vehicle mass are illustrative.
The demonstration
The October 15, 2026 McGregor reveal showed the car climbing an inverted ramp, returning to the ground, and performing a separate airborne roll over a lineup of vehicles (Tesla’s original broadcast; Top Gear’s on-site report).
Tesla described fan suction of up to twice the car’s weight, plus ten compressed-air nozzles fed by two pressure vessels with 600 liters of combined capacity and about 250 kg of air. These are manufacturer statements, not independently verified measurements (fan explanation; air-storage explanation).
Model assumptions
- Timing and layout: a compressed 36-second teaching sequence. The repositioning turn, distances, ramp radius and vehicle spacing are staged, not surveyed.
- Mass and gravity: every body has a declared example mass, including the same assumed 350 kg rig. The reference total is 2,000 kg; gravity is 9.81 m/s². These masses and loads are not manufacturer specifications.
- F1 option: an illustrative 800 kg race-car body and load, plus the same 350 kg rig. Its wings are visible but aerodynamic downforce is excluded, so this remains a comparison of the shared fans and jets, not a full F1 aerodynamic simulation.
- Fixed hardware: maximum fan suction is 39.24 kN. The upward launch component is 53.25 kN, with a separate 16 kN horizontal component. Force magnitudes and burn timing come from the reference teaching model, not measured Tesla telemetry. They do not scale with the selected body.
- Grip and drive: friction coefficient μ = 0.9 and a 40 kN drive/brake limit are assumed. A wheel controller tries to follow the reference approach within both limits. An ideal sealed contact shoe provides the same suction on every body. No real-world retrofit or structural feasibility is implied.
- Roll inertia: 850 kg·m² for the reference. Other bodies use a box approximation plus the fixed rig inertia and a center-of-mass correction. The same roll couple is applied; nozzle translation forces rotate with the body. Full pitch/yaw control, tipping and trailer articulation are not solved.
- Motion and forces: the reference keeps its analytic teaching trajectory. Other bodies are integrated at 240 steps per second with gravity, fixed jet commands, unilateral surface contact and capped tire forces. A rigid two-axle approximation bridges the curved ramp, including its floor transition. Scrubbing samples the cached trajectory and does not change its outcome.
- Separate trials: at 24.4 s, the Flight trial resets every body to the same run-in position and 3.57 m/s speed. A failed ramp trial is not magically recovered into a successful jump.
- Collisions: the selected body uses a conservative rotated-box check against the ground and parked vehicles. A trial stops at first contact; the frozen diagram is the pre-impact force snapshot. Crash impulses, deformation and post-impact motion are not simulated.
- Simplifications: no aerodynamic drag, tank-pressure decay, changing air mass, suspension, seal leakage or structural limits. Very high lightweight-vehicle trajectories are idealized upper-bound behavior, not realistic performance predictions.
- Geometry: recognizable illustrative bodies, not manufacturer CAD. The shared internal fan/tank module and nozzle mounts are schematic; the same-sized hardware is not shrunk to fit the smallest bodies.
- Diagram: arrows show external forces on the car in a fixed world frame. Diagonal depth forces are projected into the diagram. Arrow lengths use a fixed scale with a display cap; numbers retain calculated magnitudes.
Read the forces
Fans create a pressure difference. Tire friction is limited by the contact load; at a static inverted hold, suction must exceed weight for the tires to remain pressed into the road (OpenStax: friction).
Thrust acts opposite to the ejected gas. An upward thrust larger than weight accelerates the car upward, which can either lift it or brake an existing fall (NASA: thrust equation).
An off-center force creates torque; torque changes angular velocity. Rotation and center-of-mass translation are separate parts of the motion (OpenStax: rotational dynamics).