Tesla Roadster, the company's super sports car, is still in the plans, but the Austin team as of right now is not yet decided to launch it on the market, although the on-line reservation page remains active.
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Tesla is today a truly global company: its cars conquest markets and countries in order to bring electric mobility to the whole world. Positioned as the great reference and the leaders to follow, those from Austin, Texas have grown a lot in just over a decade. That growth has allowed them to announce spectacular launches, but not all of them have actually arrived or have not arrived as expected. The second generation Tesla Roadster is the great unicorn of the house: the super car should have been on the market for years, but its production is once again delayed and there is still no specific date.
Earlier this year, Tesla was celebrating the 15th anniversary of the release of the original Roadster. That electric sports car based on the a Lotus chassis was considered a weirdo, but no one can deny that it was the beginning of an era. Its production was very low and today some units are quoted more than the most modern models of the firm. Everyone considers it a pioneer car: with just 1,200 kilograms of weight and 250 CV of power, it was capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds with a 360 kilometers range.
The Roadster was the car that put Tesla on the map of the motoring world; the lessons learned with it served to launch the Model S years later. From then on the story is more than well known: with more than a million cars produced a year, the Austin team is hoping to repeat this success. Launching a second generation is a dream for Elon Musk, but that dream, at least for now, will have to keep waiting. This was detailed by Musk himself during the annual shareholders meeting held this week at the company's headquarters in Texas.
During this meeting we were able to see the first official preview of the next Tesla launch which, according to the company, is already being manufactured. There were also words to talk about future goals, where the Roadster will have a lot to say: it will not be a mass-produced car, but under its body all the experience and knowledge of these almost two decades of the company's life will be gathered and packed. But not even Tesla knows when we will see it: the new production date delays us until next year - 2024 - but the truth is that it is not the first time we have this kind of delay.
The project is clearly still underway, but Tesla does not focus all its attention on it. Musk has acknowledged that they hope to have the design and engineering resolved by the end of this year, 2023. Right now, they are focused on renewing their two star models, the aforementioned Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y. Along with them, this year will finally be the launch of the long awaited Tesla Cybertruck. The electric pick-up is about to conclude its development stage and before the end of 2023 the first units should already be circulating.
Meanwhile, Tesla is keeping the Roadster order books active - it's actually been a year since they officially reopened. On the company's website you can reserve one for $45,000; an initial investment that will pay part of the $250,000 of the final price. In the meantime we can just continue comfortably waiting for the Tesla Roadster to move up the company's list of concerns. Although 2024 has been set as the production year, it would not be surprising that in a few months the date will be postponed again, although there is always the hope that this will not be the case.
Source: 2023 Annual Shareholders Meeting
All images courtesy of Tesla Inc.
Nico Caballero is the VP of Finance of Cogency Power, specializing in solar energy. He also holds a Diploma in Electric Cars from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and enjoys doing research about Tesla and EV batteries. He can be reached at @NicoTorqueNews on Twitter. Nico covers Tesla and electric vehicle latest happenings at Torque News.
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