The ghost of Thanos lingers in the revelation of Elon Musk’s “flying car”

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been compared to a sort of real-life Tony Stark, the brash yet fictional billionaire genius of the Marvel multiverse, also known as Iron Man, played by acclaimed actor Robert Downey, Jr. to moviegoers around the world. However, this week’s media cycle belongs to Howard, Tony’s father. Howard, also a daring but fictional genius, is known for presenting a flying car to excited attendees at the 1943 “Tomorrow World” event depicted in the 2011 film Captain America, and, well… you know what happened in the movie…

Will the flying car fly?

Tonight is the night that Elon Musk plans to unveil Tesla’s recently relaunched Roadster EV, rumored to be some sort of Stark-level flying car. Technical Cleaning has moved up the event here, although the big question is whether the car will actually get off the ground.

Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. Meanwhile, other electric vehicles presented as “flying cars” have already begun to emerge. Of course, many of these look more like airplanes with wheels than cars with wings. The distinguishing feature is VTOL, the ability to take off and land vertically, with a seamless transition to horizontal flight in between so you don’t confuse them with helicopters (see more VTOL background here, here and here).

The VTOL field also has a more car-adjacent side, with the new International Airspeeder Series serving as a competitive showcase for flying electric vehicles that resemble cars, albeit somewhat loosely.

“We’ve been promised flying cars for generations,” Airspeeder proclaims, perhaps referring to Howard Stark’s somewhat optimistic prediction that his 1943-era flying car would be available “soon.”

That was (doing the math) 83 years ago, and Airspeeder founder Matt Pearson is determined to go further, here and now. The Australia-based aerospace entrepreneur founded the Airspeeder competition in 2018 alongside VTOL manufacturer Alauda Aeronautics, which bills itself as a developer of personal air mobility and urban air traffic systems. “We use racing to accelerate its adoption and development,” Alauda explains of his relationship with Airspeeder.

“The mission of our electric flying car is to build the highest-performance flying car that will define a new mobility revolution,” Airspeeder adds for good measure.

The ghost of Thanos

Another big question about the October 15 Roadster launch event is whether the automotive press is paying attention to the outside world. The short answer is another question: why should they? Regardless of who is paying attention to what, the outside world is still something that exists in time and space, and the October 15 event will take place at the epicenter of a perfect storm of bad press centered on Elon Musk himself.

I covered the recent series of unfortunate events here, including an update on Elon Musk’s Starlink debacle in Ukraine, and my colleague at Technical Cleaning ZS has more details here. The result is that Musk, once championed as an advocate for electrified mobility, has had very little to say about decarbonization these days and a lot to say about, well, everything else.

What neither ZS nor I cover is the fallout from Musk’s tenure as head of the budget-cutting office “DOGE,” where he was installed by US President Donald Trump in early 2025. The job didn’t last long: By May 2025, Musk was reportedly gone. However, he was Thanos-level efficient during that short period of time.

In addition to the damage here at home (thousands of ruined careers and upended lives following mass layoffs of federal workers run by DOGE), Elon Musk can also take credit for the rapid dismantling of the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) program.

While little known outside of government and nonprofit circles, USAID is (or was) an essential funder of economic development, health, and anti-poverty programs around the world. “USAID served as a bulwark against diseases that do not stop at national borders. Its programs identified emerging epidemics and minimized the spread of drug-resistant diseases that also threaten Americans,” notes the organization Foreign Policy in Focus.

“Since 2000, USAID programs have prevented the deaths of 58 million people from tuberculosis, 25 million from HIV/AIDS, and more than 11 million from malaria. It has provided 70 million people with access to clean water and, working in conjunction with global vaccination initiatives, helped nearly eradicate polio,” FPIF summarized last year.

With all that now gone, some public health professionals estimate that more than 14 million people will die prematurely by 2030 due to the elimination of USAID funding. Some of the damage can be offset by private philanthropy, but the damage has already been done.

Where Elon?

In answer to CleanTechnica Previous coverage of the Roadster event, one reader suggested that the Roadster still has value as a kind of shiny, shiny object that adds a shine to the rest of Tesla’s EV lineup (well, except for the Cybertruck, which can’t be saved).

That would have made sense in 2006, when Tesla first developed the Roadster as a $100,000 showcase of battery-powered mobility, aimed at car enthusiasts who can afford to collect that sort of thing. The Roadster paved the way for Tesla to receive a generous loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy in 2009 with the goal of making electric vehicles more affordable for the masses. Musk (and Tesla) repaid the loan in full just a few years later, and the rest is automotive history (again, with the notable exception of the Cybertruck).

For what or who should the new roadster shine? With the exception of the United States, electric mobility is firmly entrenched in the global automotive landscape in key markets and there is plenty of shine to go around. Even oil-soaked Saudi Arabia now offers deep-pocketed drivers shiny new home-made electric vehicles to play with. Meanwhile, here at home, affordability and the gap between the super-rich and everyone else are two related issues at the forefront of voters’ minds as the 2026 midterm election cycle reaches a boiling point.

Given the timing, it’s tempting to ask why Musk has insisted on drawing attention to himself and the Tesla brand so close to Election Day, which is right around the corner on Nov. 3, considering that Elon Musk’s personal brand is more closely tied than ever to President Trump, who has successfully positioned himself as a kind of box office poison, threatening to sink all Republican candidates everywhere on the ballot.

Come to think of it, I already asked that question yesterday and I’ll ask it again: Why the Roadster, why now?

Photo: Tesla CEO Elon Musk aims to bounce back from the Cybertruck debacle by unveiling the new Tesla Roadster on October 15, a $200,000 reboot of the original 2006 Tesla two-seater that sparked the global electric vehicle revolution (photo via CleanTechnica archive).