I Walked the Dog. Then I Preordered a Tesla Roadster.

I woke up this morning, walked the dog, came home and sat down with a hot cup of coffee. Opened X to see if anything interesting had happened overnight. I'd completely forgotten that Tesla was unveiling the new Roadster last night.

And wow. That was one crazy car launch. Even for Elon. Watching the Roadster launch itself off a ramp, turn around in mid-air and land safely back on its wheels was just incredible. My first thought was that I really need to order one of these. :)

Anyone around my age who grew up watching Knight Rider in the 1980s probably remembers KITT's Turbo Boost. Who didn't dream of having that button in a real car? And now, more than forty years later, Elon has actually built something thats even cooler. You can't legally use the flying version on public roads, but it exists. I honestly never thought I'd see something like that in my lifetime.

You could easily dismiss the whole demonstration as a spectacular marketing stunt. A flying car that isn't even road-legal. Great for headlines, but what's the point?

But the more I think about it, the more interesting it becomes. Nearly everything Elon does seems to connect back to space somehow.

The Roadster uses thrusters developed with SpaceX to control the car in mid-air. On Earth, putting thrusters in a sports car seems completely ridiculous. But think about the Moon or Mars, where gravity is much lower. Vehicles that could use thrusters to jump over obstacles, cross difficult terrain or reach places where conventional wheels would struggle.

I'm not suggesting you could take the Roadster's compressed-gas system and bolt it onto a lunar rover. Obviously the engineering would have to be different. But the idea of controlling a vehicle's movement with thrusters becomes a lot more interesting when you start thinking beyond Earth.

I have no idea whether that was part of Elon's thinking when they started working on the Roadster. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the engineering eventually finds its way into something operating on the Moon or Mars.

And even if it doesn't, I still think it's brilliant. Who else would even think of doing this with a road car?

Of course, the Rocket version that actually flies isn't something I can realistically expect to drive here in Sweden. There's also the Thrust version, with rear-mounted thrusters, but I can already imagine the European approval process for something like that. We still don't even have FSD available in Sweden, and I can't help thinking that European politicians dislike of Elon isn't exactly helping things move any faster.

So I did the only sensible thing and placed a preorder for the normal Performance version. :)

One of my absolute favourite cars from a design perspective has always been the Lamborghini Huracán. I've loved that design for years. And looking at the new Roadster, I see so much of the Huracán in it. The proportions, the aggressive lines, the whole appearance. The Roadster is very much my design language when it comes to cars. It's exactly the kind of car I want.

I've been a bit spoiled when it comes to everyday cars. I've had an Porsche Panamera GTS and recently the Audi RS6 as daily drivers, so I'm probably not the easiest person to impress.

My first electric car was the Polestar 2, their first mass-production model, which I leased when it first came out. I really liked that car. It felt good to drive, and somehow more exclusive than its price tag suggested.Our second EV was the Tesla Model Y, and honestly, it's just been... meh.

I live close to the sea, where it's often quite windy, and the Model Y really isn't that enjoyable on the highway when there's a strong crosswind. The wind catches it more than I'd like. But it's not just that. I can't really put my finger on everything I dislike about it. It's just not a car I particularly enjoy driving. The Polestar 2 felt better to me.

So I'd been looking at the new Polestar 5 and was quite tempted to go back. But with Tesla finally getting close to unveiling the Roadster, I decided to hold off and see what Elon had come up with first. Well, now I know. And there's a Roadster preorder instead of a Polestar 5.

And as if yesterday wasn't already a good day for people who love cars, Porsche also unveiled the new Mission S. Another incredibly good-looking, futuristic design. Although I can only imagine what that one will cost.

The slightly annoying part with the Roadster is that we're talking about 2028 before production even starts. Elon promises 2028. Really, 2028 this time. Although, knowing Elon, that could just as easily mean December 31, 2028, with one car delivered to somebody in the US. Haha.

I've followed Elon and Tesla since the early days, around 2010. Back then, I thought Tesla's stock valuation was completely crazy. Massively overvalued. So I never bought any shares. Stupid mistake, obviously. Even when Tesla was trading in the low $100s a few years ago, I was still too stupid to buy. So despite following Tesla for more than fifteen years, I've never actually owned a single Tesla share.

But I got another chance in 2024, when I had the opportunity to buy SpaceX shares pre-IPO. This time I jumped straight in. My only mistake was that I should have invested five times as much. Haha.

I really love Elon. I think he's a genius, a crazy entrepreneur, and incredibly inspirational. It's the way he thinks that fascinates me. When I'm brainstorming ideas with my AIs, I quite often ask them a simple question: "What would Elon do?"

Usually that means taking whatever ambition we started with and multiplying it by ten. Sometimes a hundred. And then trying to shrink the execution timeframe by a factor of ten. I love that way of thinking.

Which brings me back to something I've been thinking about for a while. Tesla and SpaceX.

I don't believe it's a question of if these two companies will merge. I think it's a question of when.

Look at what Elon is building. Tesla has batteries, manufacturing, autonomous driving and robotics. SpaceX has rockets, Starlink, satellite technology and now xAI, which it acquired earlier this year. The companies are already working together on several things, including Terafab, and Tesla invested $2 billion in SpaceX in March.

And now we have a Tesla Roadster using SpaceX technology to fly through the air.

Why would Elon want to keep all of that separated forever?

Yes, I understand there are shareholders, different valuations, regulatory issues and a lot of other complications. With SpaceX now publicly traded as well, combining the two would be an enormous transaction. But from a technology and long-term ambition perspective, I just don't see a compelling reason to keep them separate.

If your ultimate ambition is to make humanity multiplanetary, why wouldn't you want the company building the rockets, the robots, the manufacturing technology, batteries and AI all under one roof?

I think we'll eventually see one giant company. Maybe sooner than people expect.

And there's something rather funny about that possibility. After spending fifteen years thinking Tesla shares were too expensive, perhaps my SpaceX investment will be how I end up owning a piece of Tesla anyway. Haha.

P.S. My son just got home from school, so naturally I called him over. "Come here, I want to show you the car I preordered today!"

I started playing the YouTube video, but he interrupted me almost immediately.

"I've seen this! Our teacher showed us the same video at school today. It's the flying car!"

"Yes, but ours won't fly. I ordered the regular version. The flying one would never be allowed on Swedish roads."

He thought about that for about two seconds.

"We have to send a message to my teacher and him them we ordered the flying car!"

"But ours won't fly..."

Didn't matter. As far as he's concerned, we're getting a flying car. :)