SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla unveiled a redesigned Roadster equipped with thrusters on Thursday, nearly nine years after it first showed a next-generation version of its electric sports car and said it would start production in 2028.
Tesla demonstrated the two-seater vehicle, developed in collaboration with CEO Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, showing it driving upside down on a ramp using a suction system and turning in the air and landing using in-built thrusters.
The use and legality of such features on public roads were not immediately clear.
Musk has played down the car’s importance to Tesla’s finances, describing it in 2023 as a “small potato situation” that would not “move the needle in a major way financially.” But the car still carries symbolic weight.
“Tesla does not currently have a halo car, or high-performance luxury vehicle designed to showcase an automaker’s best engineering and technology. The Roadster will be Tesla’s new halo car,” Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said in a note last month.
Musk and other executives did not specify any target prices at Thursday’s event, although Tesla nearly a decade ago quoted a base price of $200,000 for the vehicle.
Tesla’s reservation page for the Roadster after Thursday’s event showed a “Performance” version of the vehicle requiring a $50,000 deposit and a “Thrust” version with “acceleration thrusters” requiring a $250,000 deposit.
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A “Rocket” variant, which Tesla says is “invite only”, is described as a single-seat model with a “full flight system”.
The Roadster can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than one second and can hit a top speed of over 230 mph, Musk said at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas.
Tesla revealed a prototype of the car in 2017 and said then that deliveries would begin in 2020.
Musk had set high expectations in 2017, saying a four-seat Roadster would travel 620 miles (1,000 km) on a single charge.
Goldstein expects Tesla to sell around 2,000 Roadsters a year — a fraction of the 1.6 million vehicles Tesla sold last year.
The original Roadster, released in 2008 and on sale until 2012, was Tesla’s first-ever EV and used a Lotus Elise chassis.
It helped change the world’s view of what an electric vehicle could be.
The company has since been known for its Model Y and Model X SUVs and Model S and Model 3 sedans.
The reveal of the second-generation Roadster also comes amid a sharp shift in Tesla’s focus to artificial intelligence-led self-driving tech and robotics, from manufacturing cars for human drivers.
This year, Tesla stopped selling Model S and X vehicles to make space for production of its Optimus humanoid robots.
It also launched Cybercab - a two-seater robotaxi that comes without manual controls such as a steering wheel, pedals and mirrors.