A new white Tesla Roadster slowly rolled up a curved ramp at SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, on Thursday.

The ramp bent past vertical into a ceiling, and the car just stuck to the ramp. It looked like magic. I guess it kind of was magic, but in reality, the car had some vacuum-like fans that suck it onto the surface.

It reversed back down, paused a moment, then went back up, and right at the top it accelerated (upside down still), then it let go, fell earthbound for a moment, fired its rocket thrusters, rolled over in midair, and landed on its wheels.

A little later, it jumped a line of Tesla’s, a Semi truck among them, in what Musk called a “kickflip.”

I showed my kids this. I said to them, hey check out this, flying cars! They asked who was driving it. I said an Optimus robot, no people were inside.

I couldn’t tell if they were really all that bothered by it.

It should also be said that cars with fans used to create downforce on demand isn’t a pioneering idea.

McMurtry Automotive put it on their hypercar years ago. They even had a real person inside theirs to demonstrate the “on demand” downforce from that (granted it wasn’t also 15 meters above the ground).

But let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Elon’s demonstration there was fun. But an absolute joke.

Seriously. Think about it. As a car that you or I would drive on the road, everything you saw is a joke.

Nobody is going to sit at the lights in a Roadster and kickflip over the SUV next to them for a laugh. Nor is anyone pressing a button to rocket home on autopilot.

Tesla says the flying “Rocket” version isn’t approved for public roads (dare I say, it never will be), and it’s currently invite only. The Roadster you will be able to order on a $50,000 deposit has no thrusters at all.

Which means there’s only one question with all this… why?

Why did SpaceX and Tesla need to team up for this?

Why did Elon feel the need to show a rocket enabled car that will never make it to the road?

I don’t think it has much to do with Earth... but a lot to do with what’s coming next for Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) and SpaceXAI (Nasdaq: SPCX).

Look again at what you saw in that demo.

It’s a one-or-two-seat machine, flown by computer, carrying hundreds of liters of compressed air.

It can hop over things and land softly on its own, defying the laws of physics apparently.

What I saw looked a heck of a lot more like a small person transport vehicle suitable for somewhere like… Mars.

Mars has 38% of Earth’s gravity, so let’s say you’ve got a vehicle there with thrusters like the Roadster’s and you come across a large mountain or rocky barrier that you can’t drive up, but you sure can boost up with your little rockets.

I think Elon really just gave us the first demonstration of what will eventually be Tesla’s range of Mars vehicles.

Sure, it won’t look like the Roadster, but for all intents and purposes, it will function the same.

And it makes more sense he’s doing this now rather than later because later is too late.

You don’t land on Mars and then work out how to get around. You build the vehicles years ahead, so when the rocket is capable of getting there, so are the vehicles it will carry.

The way I see it, the first Starship lands several Optimus robots, and they jump in a Mars “Roadster” and start moving kit about, finding the ideal locations to build out a base.

It will all look obvious in hindsight. But I’m saying right now, you’ve just seen the biggest leap forward, for space exploration yet and absolutely nothing to really do with breaking a lap record Daytona.

I also believe this is the clearest sign yet that Tesla and SpaceX are going to merge.

And for me that makes both companies worth having in a portfolio.

Buying Tesla or SpaceX probably gets you the other sooner than most people expect. As one giant AI/Space company they are the only ones that will have the capability to get to Mars, commercialize Mars and deliver to shareholders.

No other company in existence is even close, let alone in the race to do all this.

Yes, Musk has big, grand plans, and he rarely delivers them on time. But he usually does deliver.

So, if you’re in the mood for a real long term play on the only company that even feasibly could commercialize interplanetary activity, and expect that Tesla and SpaceXAI become one to achieve that, I’d say both (or either) is a must for your portfolio.

More soon,
Lewis Maguire