Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's a flipping car

There are always reasons to be found why Elon Musk can impress as well as confuse. Mostly, the reasons are the same, the latest being Tesla's new car that can jump, flip mid-air and land on its wheels, courtesy SpaceX-inspired thrusters. The Roadster, unveiled last week, employs compressed gas and Newton's third law to perform aerial acrobatics associated with fighter jets, circus performers and spectacularly unsuccessful motorists. But there's a question that may have escaped Tesla's engineers: why?

This is not a flying car, an item we honestly expected to have populated our urban airways by now, beating terrestrial traffic. The Roadster is briefly airborne, rotates and returns to ground - not quite what Henry Ford had in mind when he predicted in 1940: 'Mark my word: a combination airplane and motorcar is coming.

You may smile, but it will come.' Only if ancient Indian techies had passed down the IP of pushpak vimaans to their descendants. Interested parties may yet wait till the Roadster graduates from executing barrel rolls to something more commutable - and that keeps breakfasts in their stomachs. Until then, Tesla has invented a solution to a problem nobody has encountered outside Grand Theft Auto. Still, kudos to Elon for evolving Evel Knievel-style car stunts. While we go back to our dinky, grounded cars along the Outer Ring Road.