Don't Need Roads

Independent Roadster builders' community · est. 10.16.2026

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future (1985)

The next Roadster is supposed to leave the ground. We're the people who want to talk to it when it does. A community building on Tesla's Fleet API, started the day the domain was registered.

Join the waitlist Read the build log

The connection

1985 built the myth. 2026 ships the hardware.

Every piece of the DeLorean had a job. The Roadster's parts line up a little too neatly.

1985Flux capacitor
→
2026SpaceX package

Doc needed 1.21 gigawatts and a lightning strike. Musk has been promising cold-gas thrusters on a car for years. One of those has been said on stage with a straight face.

198588 mph
→
2026The number

The DeLorean had one speed that mattered. The Roadster's real number, measured and not announced, doesn't exist yet. When it does, it goes in the build log first.

1985Time circuits
→
2026Fleet API

Destination time, present time, last time departed. Telemetry, commands, charging. Same dashboard energy, except one of them comes with documentation and a rate limit.

What we're building

Open tools for the car, written before the car.

Everything here runs on Tesla's public Fleet API, under the owner's own login, with the owner's own virtual key. Nothing hidden, nothing scraped.

Flight log

A live telemetry wall

Speed, state of charge, power, location. Streamed, not polled. If they ever give us an altitude field, it goes top left.

Time circuits

Charging and preconditioning, one screen

Set departure, set the charge limit, warm the cabin. The boring commands, done well, from a page you can open on a phone.

Open examples

The first mile, in plain code

OAuth login, virtual key pairing, first command, first telemetry frame. Small Cloudflare Workers you can read in one sitting. MIT licensed.

Build log

Where we are, honestly.

Newest first. Orange means done. Grey means next.

First telemetry frame

First OAuth login, virtual key paired to a real car, first streamed signal. Each one becomes an entry here when it actually happens.

Tesla knows who we are

Registered dontneedroads.com as a Fleet API partner. Tesla read our public key back and it matched the one we hold. The car-side handshake is unlocked.

Day one

Domain registered. Fleet API application submitted and approved the same evening. Signing key pair generated (prime256v1). Public key published at /.well-known/appspecific/com.tesla.3p.public-key.pem. This page went live.

Join

One email when the first frame lands.

Nothing before that. No newsletter, no drip. When a real Roadster sends a real signal through this project, you hear about it the same day.