Tesla's reworked Roadster is set to make its public debut on Thursday, arriving nearly a decade after the automaker first put a preview version of a next-generation electric sports car on show. Doors open at 8:55 p.m. ET for the unveiling, which will take place at SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas.
A pre-production version of the Roadster, priced at $200,000, made its public debut in 2017, with the company putting forward 2020 as the target year for customer deliveries to get underway. Roadster reservations carry a $50,000 deposit per booking, even as the vehicle's listed price has yet to be revised.
Described by Musk in 2017 as Tesla's flagship vehicle, the four-seat next-generation Roadster was projected to cover 620 miles on a single charge, though a post on X in 2024 from Musk noted that the design had since undergone revision. Musk outlined that the new Roadster — developed through a partnership between Tesla and SpaceX, the rocket company he also runs — would hit 60 miles per hour from a standstill in under a second, a performance figure he characterised as the vehicle's least noteworthy attribute.
In a 2023 statement, Musk described the Roadster as a relatively minor item on Tesla's balance sheet — one he did not expect to produce a meaningful shift in the company's overall financial position. Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein puts annual Roadster sales at roughly 2,000 units — a volume that would account for only a sliver of the 1.6 million vehicles Tesla moved in the prior year.
Writing in a note released the month prior, Goldstein pointed out that Tesla does not yet offer what the auto industry refers to as a halo vehicle — a flagship, high-performance luxury model designed to showcase an automaker's most advanced engineering and technology. Luxury sports cars at the high-performance end of the market, the Roadster among them, can function as testing grounds for Tesla's broader technological development, even if such vehicles contribute relatively little to the company's overall revenue picture.
Launched in 2008, Tesla's first-generation Roadster remained available for purchase through to 2012. Built on the platform of a Lotus Elise, Tesla's first production car served as the technical foundation from which four later vehicles — the Model S and Model 3 sedans and the Model X and Model Y SUVs — would each draw their origins.
Unveiling a next-generation Roadster has coincided with Tesla broadening its attention toward artificial intelligence as the backbone of both autonomous driving and robotics development. Production of the Optimus humanoid robot line prompted Tesla to discontinue availability of the Model S and Model X, with factory capacity redirected toward the new programme. Alongside that rollout, the firm unveiled the Cybercab — a two-seat autonomous vehicle designed without any driver-operated hardware such as a wheel, foot pedals, or side mirrors.
