Tesla (TSLA) showed its redesigned Roadster on October 15 and said production starts in 2028, years after the first prototype appeared. If you hold a reservation, the stunts were the easy part. The date and the price are what you came for. For the pre-event rundown, see our earlier piece, Tesla Roadster reveal: what to expect after nine years of delays.
What the car did on stage
At a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, the white two-seater drove upside down on a ramp, held there by suction, then turned in the air on built-in thrusters and landed. Later it used those thrusters to jump over a truck. Elon Musk admitted it is "not necessarily a safety-optimized car," and it was not clear whether such moves would be legal on public roads.
Those were stage demonstrations on a prototype, not a list of production features. The reports we reviewed call them SpaceX thrusters, and one headline calls the car rocket-powered, but none says whether they are air jets, cold gas systems or true rocket motors. It is also unknown whether the production Roadster will have any thruster capability at all. Any propulsion beyond electric motors on a road car would face major regulatory and safety scrutiny.
Claims, and what they replace
Vehicle engineering chief Lars Moravy said the car does 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in under a second and goes more than 300 miles (483 km) on a charge. Those are company claims, not tested results. The range is well short of the 620 miles (998 km) Musk promised in 2017, when Tesla also said deliveries would start in 2020.
Price and the skeptics
No final price was given. Tesla quoted $200,000 nearly a decade ago, and its reservation page now lists a Thrust version at $250,000. Analyst Gene Munster called the car an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional carmakers. Musk himself once called the Roadster a "small potato situation".
So the 2028 date is a promise from a company that already missed 2020. Would you trust it, or wait for a delivery slot first?
Next up: whether Tesla names a price, and whether its October 21 earnings report says anything new about timing.
Sources
- 1.Tesla Unveils Redesigned Rocket-Powered Roadster With Delayed Production Timeline · Yahoo Finance
- 2.Tesla’s new Roadster turns in air with SpaceX thrusters, won’t land until 2028 · The Straits Times
- 3.Tesla unveils Roadster with SpaceX thrusters, production set for 2028 · nationthailand
- 4.Tesla unveils long-awaited next generation Roadster sports EV after years of delay · TRT World
Reported by the WattsUpNext desk from the sources linked below. Spot an error? Tell us at corrections@wattsupnext.com.
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