Tesla Roadster: Six Years Late, Everyone Is Waiting for Something Real
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Promised for 2020 and still not delivered: Tesla plans to unveil the next generation of its Roadster electric sports car on Thursday evening, Texas time. The event was originally scheduled for early October, but Tesla called it off at short notice, saying the show could “only be held outdoors” and the weather would not allow it, Electrek reported. Tesla itself is promising “the quickest vehicle in the world,” with record-setting acceleration, range and performance.
A Long Backstory
It all started with a Roadster at Tesla. The first Roadster, an electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise, went on sale in 2008 as the company’s first car and was built until 2012. About 2,450 were sold. It proved that electric cars could be sporty and paved the way for the Model S.
Elon Musk unveiled the prototype of its successor in November 2017 as a surprise at the launch of the Semi electric truck. The promises at the time: a four-seater with three motors, 0 to 60 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds, a top speed of more than 250 miles per hour and a range of about 620 miles, as Trending Topics reported back then. Production was supposed to begin in 2020. In 2018, Mr. Musk launched his personal first-generation Roadster into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and that same year he announced a “SpaceX package” with cold gas thrusters.
Since then, the date has slipped again and again: to 2021, 2022, 2023, “hopefully” 2024, then 2025 and most recently to 2027 or 2028. Electrek counts at least six delays to the start of production and seven dates for the unveiling. Tesla has recently prioritized A.I., robotics and autonomous driving.
What to Expect
Teasers point to SpaceX’s cold gas thrusters, which Mr. Musk has said would allow the car to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under one second. According to a report by The Information, Tesla is planning two versions: a limited “flying” model for demonstrations, which would be operated remotely, and a street-legal version, InsideEVs wrote. A patent for an active rear spoiler and another for a kind of fan that creates suction underneath the car have fueled further speculation. Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of engineering, once called the Roadster the “last, best driver’s car” before the era of self-driving vehicles.
The Price
Tesla has not yet announced a current price. In 2017, the base price was $200,000 (about €178,000), while the limited Founders Series of 1,000 cars cost $250,000 (about €223,000), payable in full up front. A standard reservation required a $50,000 deposit (about €44,600). Whether those prices still apply nine years later is unclear. For a possible “flying” special edition, InsideEVs considers prices from several hundred thousand dollars to more than $1 million conceivable.
The Competition
Since 2017, the field of expensive electric sports cars has grown crowded. At the top is Croatia’s Rimac Nevera, which costs about €2.1 million and, in its Nevera R version, accelerates from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 1.72 seconds, according to the manufacturer. BYD holds the speed record: The Yangwang U9 reached 496 kilometers per hour in its Xtreme version. Somewhat cheaper are the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, at about €240,000, and the Lucid Air Sapphire, which costs up to $249,000 (about €222,000) in the United States. Since the spring, Ferrari has also joined the race: The Luce, the first fully electric Ferrari, starts at €550,000. It is, however, a four-door, five-seat car that accelerates from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 2.5 seconds and reaches more than 310 kilometers per hour. Ferrari designed it with LoveFrom, the design studio of the former Apple designer Jony Ive. Early prototypes were spotted testing at the start of 2025. Xiaomi, for its part, set a Nürburgring record for production electric cars with the SU7 Ultra, at a fraction of those prices.
Criticism of the Show
At Electrek, which has followed the delays for years, enthusiasm is muted. A thruster demo does nothing for customers who have been waiting for their car since 2017, the site argued. Cold gas thrusters deliver only a few bursts per tank and add weight and cost. Electrek mainly wants three answers from the event: a production-ready car, a real price and a firm start of production.
