Image Credit: Dreame.
You probably know Dreame. They're the folks who make cordless vacuum cleaners that suck the pet hair out of your carpet with the intensity of a black hole. They're great at cleaning floors. But it seems someone in the boardroom had a wee bit too much caffeine - or something stronger from the Highlands - and decided that cleaning dust wasn't nearly exciting enough. So, they decided to build a car. And no, not a sensible little electric hatchback for the school run. They've built a rocket. A literal, honest-to-goodness rocket car called the Nebula NEXT 01 JET Edition.
I've seen some seriously daft things in my time as a journalist, but this? This absolute loon of a vehicle is targeting a 0-60 mph sprint in 0.9 seconds. Read that again, please. It takes me longer to blink than it takes this machine to reach highway speeds. If those claims are true - and that's a giant "if" - it'll make the Rimac Nevera and the McMurtry Spéirling look like they're stuck behind a tractor. This Nebula-thing will be "where did my internal organs go?" fast.
Image Credit: Dreame.
How do they achieve this level of madness? They haven't used only electric motors. That would be too sensible. Instead, they've bolted a dual solid-fuel rocket booster system onto the back. This setup generates a peak thrust of 22,481 pounds. For those of you who don't speak "aerospace engineer," that is a terrifying amount of shove and the system responds to your heavy right foot in about 150 milliseconds. That's faster than your brain can realize you've made a terrible mistake. It's essentially a land-bound missile with a cup holder.
I'm an optimist by nature, but I've also got a decent amount of skepticism running through my veins. A vacuum company building a car that runs on rocket fuel? It is something a ten-year-old me would draw on the back of math homework. Yet, they've been showing this beast off in San Francisco this week, and they even invited me for the reveal! Unfortunately, since I was in Beijing, they brought along Sebastian Thrun. He's the genius who helped start Google's self-driving car project. If he's involved, maybe there's more to this than a bunch of CGI and a dream. Or maybe he likes fast vacuums.
Image Credit: Dreame.
The tech under the skin is actually quite impressive, assuming it actually exists - intelligent chassis architecture, an electromagnetic active suspension, and ultra-high-def LiDAR designed to detect potholes and pedestrians. I h¡guess that's good, because if you hit a pothole at the speed of light, you won't pop a tire - you'll probably end up in a different time zone. They're also claiming L3+ autonomous capabilities, meaning the car can drive itself. Personally, the idea of a car that goes 0-60 in under a second and makes its own decisions is a bit like giving a chainsaw to a squirrel on meth.
If the "Jet Edition" feels a bit too much like a suicide mission for your taste, there is a slightly more "subtle" version. The standard Nebula NEXT 01 EV is a four-door electric hyper-sedan that sports a casual 1,900 horsepower. It "only" does 0-60 mph in 1.8 seconds. I say "only" because in this topsy-turvy world, 1.8 seconds is now considered the slow option. It's a bonnie-looking thing, though I suspect the price tag will require you to sell a kidney.
Image Credit: Dreame.
The plan is to bring the non-jet version to the streets by the second half of 2027 - that's not really far off. Imagine pulling up to the lights in your quiet electric sedan, only to realize you're sitting on 1,900 horses. Completely mental. But will the version with the spacecraft rear end actually hit the road? I have my doubts. The regulators will likely have a fit when they see solid-fuel rockets on a car intended for the Santa Fe Boulevard.
You have to love the ambition. Dreame has spent a decade developing this tech, and even if we never see the rockets in a parking lot, the engineering behind it is a huge win for the auto industry. Sure, it's a bit of a gamble, a lot of a laugh, and a ton of speed. Whether it sucks or blows - pun absolutely intended - we'll find out in 2027. Until then, I'm keeping my rockets in the shed and my vacuum on the carpet.
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