Whatever happened to the second-generation Tesla Roadster? It’s a question the automotive world has pondered for years now, but which we suspect comes up far more frequently in the homes of Tesla fans who stumped up a $50,000 deposit way back in 2017, yet are still waiting to receive their car.
The Roadster was revealed as a surprise after the launch of the Tesla Semi electric truck all the way back in November 2017. A successor to Tesla’s first ever car, also called the Roadster and launched in 2008, company boss Elon Musk said the new Roadster would arrive in 2020.
Now expected to land in 2026, the Roadster is an electric convertible sports car with 2+2 seating, making it a rival for the Polestar 6, also due out next year.
Will we see anything of the Roadster in 2025? Or is Tesla’s focus now on the autonomous Cybercab and cut-price Model Q instead? Here’s everything we know so far, and we’ll add updates when fresh Tesla Roadster news comes to light.
Tesla Roadster release date
At the 2017 reveal, a 2020 release date for the Roadster felt fairly conservative, even by Tesla’s lax timekeeping standards. But despite a few high-profile public outings for a Roadster prototype, and a stint in the world-famous Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, Elon Musk said in the spring of 2020 that production would start in 12 to 18 months’ time.
This was followed by a tweet from Musk in early 2021 saying production had been pushed back again, this time to 2022. The Tesla boss claimed engineering for the car would be completed in 2021, but by September that year he said production had been delayed again, this time until 2023.
Fast-forward to May 2023 and production for the Roadster was pushed back yet again, to 2024. Then in February that year the target was shifted once more, to 2025. Music also said in early 2024 that a production version of the Roadster would be revealed before the end of the year, and that deliveries of customer cars would commence in early 2025. That reveal didn’t happen either, and it now seems unlikely that deliveries will begin any time soon.
Musk last spoke about the Roadster on an earnings call in late 2024, stating: “I’d certainly like to thank our long-suffering deposit holders of the Tesla Roadster.” Musk added that his company is “close to finalising the car’s design,” and that the Roadster’s development “has to come behind the things that have a more serious impact on the good of the world…The Roadster is the cherry on the icing on the cake.”
Tesla Roadster price
When Tesla revealed the Roadster back in 2017 it said the car would be priced from $200,000. It also said it plans to build 1000 examples of what it calls the Roadster Foundation Series, which costs $250,000 and will be delivered ahead of the regular version with the lower price tag.
Customers were asked to pay a $50,000 deposit to secure their order of a standard Roadster, while buyers of the Founders Series had to pay the entire $250,000 up front. Although Tesla hasn’t announced plans for selling the Roadster in markets beyond the US, the company’s UK website invites customers to pay a refundable £4,000 deposit, plus a further £34,000 due within 10 days to secure their Roadster.
Despite this, Tesla has not said how much the Roadster will actually cost in the UK, or other markets beyond the US.
Tesla Roadster specification
Tesla says the Roadster will accelerate to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds and to 100 mph in 4.2 seconds. It also says the triple-motor, all-wheel-drive car will complete a quarter-mile sprint in 8.8 seconds and have a top speed of over 250 mph.
Tesla claims the range will be 620 miles – far greater than even the longest-range EVs on sale today – and describes the Roadster as a 2+2, meaning it has a pair of small seats in the rear, as well as two standard seats up front.
If the range claim wasn’t outlandish enough, Musk tweeted in June 2018 how the Roadster will be offered with a “SpaceX package” which taps into technology used by the space rocket company he also runs. This would give the Roadster “10 small rocket cold air thrusters arranged seamlessly around the car,” he said.
The Tesla boss has even suggested the car might fly. Musk said in the same 2018 tweet: “These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking and cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly….”
Musk has spoken about the Tesla x SpaceX tech tie-in for some time now, but is yet to show any evidence of the Roadster using any form of thruster to boost performance. He has previously said how the car could use rocket technology to reduce its 0-60 mph time to under one second, and that one thruster would deploy from behind the rear licence plate.
All of this should be taken with a pinch of salt. Mate Rimac, the Croatian boss of both Bugatti and electric hypercar company Rimac, has since poured cold water on Musk’s one second acceleration claim. Rimac said on Facebook in 2024: “It is possible with thrusters. We did the simulation. Problem is, you release the air in two to three seconds and then you have a lot of dead weight that you are carrying around (tanks, compressor, valve, nozzles etc). Same with fans – they just give you more grip, but you need something like 30,000 Nm [of torque] on the wheels to accelerate below 1 sec 0-100 km/h, which means you need massive motors, inverters, gearboxes, driveshafts, etc.”
Tesla currently states the Roadster produces 10,000 Nm of wheel torque, and makes no mention of the SpaceX tech on the specification or pre-order pages of its website.
Tesla Roadster latest rumours
Other than the aforementioned delays and performance claims, 2024 was a quiet year for Tesla Roadster news and rumours. Musk said on X, formerly Twitter, in February 2024: “Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster. There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car.”
Musk later said in response to a tweet: “0-60 mph < 1 sec. And that is the least interesting part.” He also said: “Production design complete and unveiled by end of the year, aiming to ship next year.”
In March 2024 Musk told the Don Lemon podcast: “The only way to do something that’s cooler than the Cybertruck is to combine SpaceX and Tesla technology to create something that’s not really even a car, something that’s never existed before. Musk added that the Roadster will have “totally Jetsons vibes,” in a reference to the 1960s cartoon that featured flying cars.
