One week after Tesla unveiled the new Roadster, the kickflip has become a genre of its own. Thousands of people are rebuilding the flying sports car with AI tools and dropping it into their everyday lives: over a police checkpoint on a country road, through the barrier of a parking garage, over a tailgating BMW, straight out of a traffic jam. The strongest parodies reach several hundred thousand likes on Instagram, a grandmother in a Roadster 377,000, an "iPhone 50" with thrusters under the desk 375,000. The White House, Lockheed Martin, IKEA and a German construction firm have joined in too. Here are the best Tesla Roadster memes, the formats behind them, the new trends they are spawning, and what founders can take from them for their own marketing.
As of 22 October 2026, 13:00 UTC.
More on this topic: AI in the Founder's Working Day, with background, practice and every article in one place.
The Best Tesla Roadster Memes: These AI Videos Went Viral
The most successful parodies put the Roadster into a situation everyone knows: traffic jams, tailgaters, checkpoints. Top of the list is a clip from Georgia in which the Roadster is stuck in Tbilisi traffic, with 695,000 likes. Most of these videos are made with AI, while the original is real. How Tesla demonstrated the Roadster in the early hours of 16 October and how you can tell is covered in my first piece: Tesla Roadster: Real or AI? What the Kickflip Teaches.
| Clip | Account | Platform | Likes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Roadster stuck in Tbilisi traffic | @gigi_kurtanidze | 695,000 | |
| Grandmother flies over a tailgating BMW | @dima.bobryka | 377,000 | |
| "iPhone 50" fires up under the desk | @argenby | 375,000 | |
| The Roadster on the Minsk ring road | @madebyfial | 226,000 | |
| The Roadster among New York taxis | @adrianabubori | 174,000 | |
| Hacking the tailgater via Neuralink | @SparkPluggUwU | X | 150,000 |
| Over a police checkpoint and a garage barrier | @tim_huck_ | 117,000 | |
| "We really got flying cars before GTA 6" | @WhiteHouse | X | 108,000 |
| Forklift on the kickflip ramp | @kaisertiefundpflasterbau | 69,000 | |
| Insurers watching the demo | @0xgaut | X | 67,000 |
For comparison: Tesla's own reels now stand at 5.0 million likes for the upside-down ramp run and 3.0 million for the kickflip. On the morning after the unveiling they had 2.0 and 1.2 million. So the originals kept growing while the copies piled up, and that is no coincidence: every parody sends new viewers back to the source.
Grandmother, Police, Parking Garage: The Formats Behind the Roadster Parodies
Almost every successful clip follows one of four patterns. They work without sound, make sense in a second and have an opponent the Roadster simply flies over.
Revenge on the tailgater. On a country road, a BMW convertible sits right on the bumper and flashes its high beams. At the wheel of the white Roadster is a grandmother in a cardigan. She adjusts her glasses, the thrusters fire under the car, and suddenly the BMW is driving underneath her. The creator @dima.bobryka captions it in Ukrainian, roughly "flashed the high beams, got the middle finger". Instagram labels the clip as AI content; it has 377,000 likes, 5,384 comments and 13,700 shares. The same idea as a one-liner: "Slow driver in left lane. Me in the new Tesla Roadster:", posted by @GingerBeardGage on X, 37,000 likes.
The checkpoint. The creator @tim_huck_ has the Roadster jump a police checkpoint on a rain-soaked German country road while the officer is still holding up his signalling disc. Then the same car rolls up to the barrier of a parking garage. "The new Tesla Roadster is overdoing it" reads the German caption, made with the AI video service Higgsfield according to its hashtags. The account has just under 4,700 followers, the clip 117,000 likes. In a clip by @azzam_alabdo, the Roadster flies above the clouds with a German police car hovering behind it: "Tesla can fly… but it still isn't allowed to park!"
The traffic jam. Tbilisi, Minsk, New York: the Roadster is stuck in traffic and everyone waits for the moment it lifts off. In Latin America it gets tangled in a mess of power lines in a post by @TuTiaSandra, 39,000 likes. In South Korea, according to JKN, fake traffic reports have been circulating since 18 October, such as a "Gangnam Skyway" above the gridlock or a Roadster jumping a toll gate, with 330,000 views.
The mishap. The joke that came instantly: you try to roll down the window in your Roadster and accidentally launch the car 60 feet into the air. Chris Bakke posted it on X less than half an hour after Musk's first clip, 36,000 likes, 818,000 views. The insurers followed right after: "car insurance companies watching the roadster demo", 67,000 likes. Behind the joke is a real question, which already had 23,000 likes as a comment under Tesla's own reel on the first morning.
iPhone 50 and Forklifts: How the Tesla Kickflip Jumps to Other Products
The second wave has little to do with cars. The kickflip has become a template you can lay over anything: ramp, thrusters, jump. On 21 October, six days after the unveiling, @argenby posted his "iPhone 50". A young man with headphones sits at his desk, the caption reads "iPhone 50", then two blue thrusters fire under the desk just like on the Roadster. The clip reached 375,000 likes and 9,232 shares, even though it came out almost a week after the original. There is of course no iPhone 50; the joke works because everyone recognises the thrusters at once.
It works especially well for small businesses that send their own equipment up the ramp. Kaiser Tief- und Pflasterbau GmbH, a civil engineering and paving firm from Klettgau in south-west Germany, posted "Gabelstapler Roadster in Action", its forklift driving up the curved ramp at night. The company has around 2,500 followers, the clip 69,000 likes and 771 comments. The crane maker Hidrokon captioned its clip "No need to fly", 19,000 likes. The burger shop Easy Burger put a burger on the ramp on day one, "Same technology. Better engineering.", 31,000 likes. And according to JKN, the city of Gwangju in South Korea promoted its kimchi festival with a clay jar that drives up the ramp and shoots out kimchi instead of compressed air.
How Brands Reacted to the Flying Tesla Roadster
The big brands chose one of two routes: play along or set themselves apart. Both work when the punchline fits their own story. Marketing-Interactive has compiled an overview.
- Lockheed Martin quoted Tesla's note that the Roadster was inspired by the SR-71 and F-35 military jets and wrote "SR-71. F-35. Roadster. All three fly.", 39,000 likes.
- IKEA Taiwan rebuilt the ramp with toy cars from its own range: all vehicles have undergone safety testing and are suitable for children. On Facebook it drew more than 96,000 likes.
- Volvo set itself apart: "Down to Earth. Since 1927." All four wheels on the ground since 1927.
- MINI dug out an old black-and-white photo of a Mini in mid-air: "Flying solo since 1959. Nice to have company."
- Hot Wheels wrote "We've been doing this since 1968", and the airline Norwegian mounted thrusters under a plane: ours already flies and has toilets.
- AXE strapped deodorant cans under a car, Razer launched a gaming mouse, Toblerone asked whether flying cars stop at duty free.
Even politics joined in. In the early hours of 17 October, German time, the White House posted "We really got flying cars before GTA 6", a nod to the long-awaited video game, with 4.6 million views. And Sam Altman, head of OpenAI and at odds with Musk for years, wrote "Wow the new roadster looks quite amazing, good job @elonmusk", 6.8 million views. When your declared opponents congratulate you, you have done something right.
How the AI Videos of the Flying Tesla Roadster Are Made
Nobody needs a studio for a clip like this any more. Most start from a single photo of your own car: templates circulate in the editing app CapCut that put the picture on the ramp and lift it off, and on TikTok they run under terms like "Roadster Fly Filter". More elaborate videos such as the police checkpoint are made with AI video services like Higgsfield or Kling, which generate whole scenes from a text description. How we use tools like these in our own business is covered in the overview of AI in daily work.
This has turned into a trend of its own: the prompt as bait. "Comment TESLA to get the prompt", writes @mister_z under his clip, which drew 32,000 likes and 1,460 comments. Every comment is a signal to the algorithm and at the same time a new contact for the message that follows. How strongly such signals steer distribution is something I described in the piece on social media algorithms.
On labelling: Instagram itself marks many of the clips as "AI info", including the grandmother video. For businesses in the EU, Article 50(4) of the AI Act has also applied since 2 August 2026: anyone who publishes an AI video that deceptively shows real people, objects or events must disclose that it was artificially generated. For evidently satirical or artistic works, a notice that does not spoil the work is enough. The simplest way to get there is a visible "made with AI" in the caption. This is not legal advice.
What Search Queries About the Tesla Roadster Reveal About the Trend
Search tells a different story than Instagram. In the first five days, people found my first Roadster piece via 364 different Google search queries, and almost all of them ask the same question: "is the tesla kickflip real", "tesla roadster real or ai", "is the tesla roadster video ai". In between, the first queries show up that already belong to the memes, such as "rocket league tesla roadster", "knight rider flying car" or the German "tesla roadster parodie".
Interest peaked on day two with 6,358 impressions in Google Search. Three days later, on 20 October, it was down to 816, a drop of 87 percent. The likes under Tesla's ramp reel, by contrast, more than doubled from 2.0 to 5.0 million by 22 October. Search asks a question and is satisfied once it is answered. On Instagram and TikTok, every new parody carries the topic further, six days later still with 375,000 likes for the iPhone 50.
What Founders Can Learn From the Tesla Roadster Memes
I looked at the successful clips with one simple question: what can a small business copy without Tesla's budget? Five things.
First: in search, 48 hours count. If you want to be found for an event, you have to be there in the first two days. After that the question has been answered. Bakke's joke came in under half an hour, the burger shop posted on day one.
Second: on social, your own idea counts more than the timing. The iPhone 50 came on day six and still ranks among the three strongest clips, because it carries the trend over to something new instead of repeating it.
Third: put your own product on the ramp. The forklift from Klettgau drew 69,000 likes, around 28 times the company's follower count, because it shows what drives around there every day. The reach came from the trend, not from its own audience. How to show a product in short clips that people grasp without sound is the subject of the German piece Produktvideo erstellen: Was Gründer von Tesla lernen on Gründerfreunde.
Fourth: tell your own story. Volvo, MINI and Hot Wheels did not just laugh along; each brand named a year from its own history. That way, the brand sticks after the joke, not just Tesla.
Fifth: label it and make it easy to copy. A "made with AI" costs nothing and protects you. And anyone launching something can learn from Tesla how to build an image others want to copy: one ramp, one jump, one second. Every copy is reach you do not have to pay for. At SLABHIT we see in live commerce at every show how much a single strong moment on video decides the reach of an entire evening.
And the Real Flying Cars? What Already Exists in 2026
Anyone searching for "flying car" after the videos will find a handful of projects that actually want to take off. Strictly speaking, the Roadster is not one of them: it jumps on compressed air for a few seconds, it does not fly. The others are further along, but even there flying in everyday life is still the future. According to drohnen.de, no flying car with German approval is known so far.
| Model | How it takes off | Price according to maker | Status October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla Roadster | jumps on compressed-air thrusters | not announced, deposit from $50,000 | production announced from 2028 |
| Aridge Land Aircraft Carrier (XPeng) | off-roader carrying an aircraft in the rear | under 2 million yuan, around $280,000 | around 7,000 pre-orders, handovers in China planned from late 2026 |
| PAL-V Liberty | gyroplane with folding rotor | expected from €299,000 excluding tax | reservations, EASA flight certification pending |
| Alef Model A | takes off vertically out of road traffic | around $300,000 expected | special US certificate for test flights only |
The Aridge figures come from Low Altitude Economy, the Liberty price from PAL-V itself. More on video, retail and reach in the overview of e-commerce and live commerce.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the videos of the flying Tesla Roadster real?
Tesla's demonstration on 15 October 2026 in Texas was real: a prototype jumped over five cars in front of an audience. The many parodies with grandmothers, police checkpoints or parking garages, on the other hand, are almost all made with AI. Instagram labels many of them as AI content.
How do you make an AI video of the flying Roadster?
The easiest way is a template in the CapCut app that puts a photo of your own car on a ramp and lifts it off. More elaborate scenes are made from a text description with AI video services such as Higgsfield or Kling. Anyone publishing the video should label it "made with AI".
What is the iPhone 50?
A meme, not a product. On 21 October 2026, the creator @argenby showed an "iPhone 50" with two blue thrusters firing underneath, just like the Roadster. The clip reached 375,000 likes and stands for the second wave of the trend, in which the Roadster thrusters are transferred to other things.
Do AI videos have to be labelled?
In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026: anyone publishing deceptively realistic AI videos must disclose that they are artificially generated. For evident satire, a notice that does not spoil the work is enough. Platforms such as Instagram add their own labels as well.
Can you already buy a flying car?
Several models can be reserved, such as the PAL-V Liberty from €299,000 or the Aridge Land Aircraft Carrier, whose handovers in China are planned from late 2026. Tesla plans to build the Roadster from 2028. No flying car with German approval is known so far.
Best,
Dennis Weidner
Note: AI tools supported me in writing this article, and some images were edited with AI. I stand behind its content and every statement with my name.
