Starting today, anyone who wanders into the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles can stand next to the new Tesla Roadster. No ticket, no invite, no thruster license. And to make sure nobody shows up unprepared, Tesla dropped a 34-second video on Friday showing what the Roadster’s driver actually looks at, which turns out to be a fighter-jet-style screen with a gauge that reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI.”
Four days in the lobby
The Petersen’s own Roadster page says the car will be on display in its main lobby from Saturday, Oct. 24 through Tuesday, Oct. 27, a “limited four-day appearance.” It’s not a lookalike. The museum says it’s the same Roadster that shared the stage with Elon Musk and the Tesla team at the reveal in McGregor, Texas, and calls this “the first time the public will be able to experience the vehicle up close.”
Drive Tesla Canada filled in the practical bits. The Petersen is at 6060 Wilshire Blvd and opens daily from 10 AM to 6 PM PT (1 PM to 9 PM ET; that’s 2 AM to 10 AM JST the following day, for anyone in Tokyo planning a very long lunch break). Because the car sits in the lobby, you don’t need a museum ticket to see it. Sawyer Merritt flagged the display on X on Friday, and the museum’s page carries a “Roadster Thrust Prototype” label, the trim with rear cold-gas thrusters.
The cockpit, as Tesla sees it
Here’s the video, straight from Tesla, posted Friday at 4:32 PM ET / 1:32 PM PT (Saturday 5:32 AM JST):
The caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.” Pilot. Not driver. Tesla is committed to the bit.
Teslarati went through it frame by frame. The home screen is black with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, sitting next to the Roadster’s squared-off yoke. Tap parts of the model and you get rear-wing controls with low-drag and high-downforce positions, a charging page with a charge-limit bar, and a small music player. The bottom row of tabs reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate. Notice what’s in the middle of the home screen: the car, not a map. Every other Tesla puts navigation front and center.
Most of the clip lives in Track Mode. There’s a live circuit map, a list of lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature for each tire. A setup page offers Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce and Custom aero modes, plus aero balance and brake balance, and switches for turning stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, the status bar shows “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” light.
That gauge isn’t decoration. Not a Tesla App reported that the Thrust trim’s cold-gas thrusters make more than 80 kN, about 18,000 pounds of thrust, which beats an F-16’s engine at military power without afterburner. Filling the high-pressure tank for five seconds of thrust currently takes two to six hours, and Tesla hopes to get that down to about half an hour. Not a Tesla App also found a separate e-boost push-to-pass button, which makes the “Boost Ready” light on screen look a lot like a promise.
Still a 2028 car
None of this changes the calendar. Musk said at the event that Roadster production starts in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version isn’t approved for public roads. Reservations need a $50,000 payment, Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite-only, per Teslarati. Tesla’s Lars Moravy has pushed back on doubters, writing on X that “we don’t show things that we can’t do in production,” as Benzinga reported via Yahoo Finance, and Drive Tesla Canada reported his comment that the cold-gas thrusters are built for production, not just for show.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Tesla also hasn’t said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will find its way into the Model 3 Performance.
For readers in Japan: Roadster reservations opened here at ¥6.82 million (about $43,500), left-hand drive only. And if you missed the launch-night stunts, our piece on Musk’s plan for the Roadster to do its own stunts is the place to start.
Lester’s take
The most dramatic thing a normal Tesla screen has ever told me is that a tire is a little low. The Roadster’s screen tells you how much rocket gas you have left. “Boost Ready” sitting in the status bar like it’s no big deal is the most Tesla thing I’ve seen all year. I can’t get to Wilshire Boulevard by Tuesday (Tokyo to LA is a slightly bigger commute than Shibuya to Shinjuku), so if you go, please take photos for those of us stuck staring at tire-pressure pages. Also, Tesla: “pilot”? Most of us in Japan are still waiting to let the car drive itself. Don’t tempt us with a pilot’s license.
Sources: Petersen Automotive Museum, Tesla on X, Drive Tesla Canada, Not a Tesla App, Teslarati, Sawyer Merritt on X, Benzinga via Yahoo Finance.
— Lester Miyashiro, EVX News
Featured image: The Roadster’s interface showing the car with its rear thrusters lit, a frame from Tesla’s Oct. 23, 2026 video. Image: Tesla, via @Tesla on X (official video frame).