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The story
A demo video Tesla released of its Roadster sparked discussion on 5ch (a major Japanese forum). The car carries an onboard compressed-air tank and bounces along a half-pipe-shaped course, with particular attention paid to the claim that it compresses and stores its own air rather than being fed gas from an external source. Viewers’ reactions split between mockery (“What’s this even for?”) and defenders arguing that “technology that looks useless now can become the foundation for the future.” The debate grew into a discussion of concrete use cases — from escaping a car after it plunges off a mountain road, to crossing a collapsed road after a disaster, to serving as a helicopter substitute or even military applications. A side-tangent also broke out over the Roadster name, which Mazda also uses for one of its cars.
What people said
Something amazing always ends up being useful for something.
Looks like it could hop right over a road that's collapsed from heavy rain, too.
You'd normally check for name overlap first, right?
Though it's pretty clear they see Mazda as a nobody not worth worrying about.
Nah, that's not it.
"Roadster" is a generic term for a type of car body style.
If anything, it's embarrassing that Mazda turned a generic term into its own car's name.
Exactly this.
Same with the steam engine — that tech eventually led to cars and electrical power generation.
Half-pipe driving demo (long version)
Tesla Roadster
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/2110940109700988928/vid/avc1/1280×720/1RLp9tWcuKhrw10Z.mp4
Fair point — could be essential tech for driving on unpaved terrain like the Moon's surface.
Impressive.
Though obviously, if there's anyone standing nearby, they're getting blasted away.
When they were first discovered, they were probably mocked by the same kind of dullards who mock Tesla's flying car now.
But today, both gunpowder and math have become indispensable.
Something amazing is amazing because it's amazing.
What is this guy even talking about.
Sounds like a recipe for a ton of major accidents.
It was meaningless — just promotion for a Chinese company.
No idea why Governor Yoshimura was hyping that thing up as a showpiece when it wasn't even an Osaka company, let alone a Japanese one.
They should equip patrol cars and ambulances with it first.
It's flying without any info on where it'll land…
Can't exactly swerve mid-air, so this seems like a massive accident waiting to happen.
Actually think about what it could be used for, idiot.
Okay then, so what IS it for?
have popped up now and then over the years, but they always stayed stuck at the concept stage.
And here I thought it must be charging up some gas from an external source,
but apparently the car itself compresses air into the tank on its own.
The part you'd want to actually be real, is actually real.
This isn't just a mock-up — it's the genuine thing.
That's exactly where you start thinking about solutions.
Like building infrastructure that's safe even with other cars around,
or coming up with a completely different use case.
You end up thinking, "a big drone would do just fine."
Still more exciting than the Expo's "flying car" with helicopter-style propellers stuck on it, though.
That thing has way less practicality and potential for development than this.
It just looks flashy and dreamy on the surface.
I think building it into a big drone-car is probably the realistic path.
That's great
Drone × air-rocket.
for disaster-response vehicles or military use —
basically any car that has to "drive" where there's no road, I think it's needed.
In that case a helicopter would be far more useful — I think it's a stretch for this to replace one.
No idea how tight a turning radius this Roadster has, but
wouldn't how you use it depend on whether ground or air is the main mode?
If transport is the priority, it'd be a helicopter though.
Helicopters have limited landing spots in places like forests, so depending on the terrain, this could actually be more usable.
It's not some "what's the use case? None, right? None, right? Ha, I win lol" situation — that's just pointless.
Instead of smirking at it, the point is to think about what you'd WANT it to become.
Like, "I want it to fly longer," say.
Then that leads to "let's beef up the compressor," and research moves forward and the tech develops.
"What's this even for lol" is just idiotic. Think.
Elon isn't some god who can bypass the laws of physics, and
if you cram enough air pressure into a car-sized body to lift several tons of mass for minutes at a time, you've basically got a city-destroying bomb.
Well said 🌕👌
The impressive part is that they actually go and BUILD concept models like this.
That's money and technology put to proper use.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The video causing a stir in the thread is a driving demo of Tesla’s forthcoming production car, the “Roadster,” leaping and hovering using compressed air. As noted in reply #45 and elsewhere, what’s drawing attention is that the car runs under its own power, carrying its own tank rather than being fed gas from an external source. That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that this Roadster, first unveiled in 2017, has seen its mass production repeatedly delayed, and the “flying car” discussed in the thread isn’t actually on the market yet. Reply #116’s argument of “don’t mock it, think it through” and the earlier analogy that “gunpowder and math were also mocked as useless at first” (reply #11) involve something of a logical leap — whether accumulated abstract knowledge can really be compared to a single-purpose piece of hardware like a jumping mechanism is a point the thread itself never quite resolves. The reference to the Expo’s “flying car” (reply #68) also touches on a gap readers might miss: Governor Yoshimura treated it as a showpiece attraction, even though it was actually a promotional vehicle for a Chinese company.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Guy who saw Tesla’s flying car: “What’s this even for lol” ← idiot.”
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