In mid-October, CEO Elon Musk sort of made good on a long-standing promise: Tesla’s new second-gen Roadster flew through the air . Technically, the vehicle used compressed air to “thrust” itself —the “flying” lasted mere seconds, and the system takes six to seven hours to refill .

Never mind, though—some buyers were eager to unsheath their credit cards to reserve one of the cars. “I was freaking out,” says Alex Lawrence, the owner of used-electric-vehicle dealership EVAuto, who already had one reservation for a second-gen Roadster and watched the demonstration live online. “I placed another one.”

It’s not a decision most would make lightly. Tesla took years to get the sports car even close to production. The automaker first introduced the vehicle , a successor to its first car ever , as a surprise at a 2017 event, and immediately began taking $50,000 reservations.…