Tesla unveils next generation Roadster sports EV with SpaceX thrusters

On Thursday, Tesla introduced a redesigned Roadster fitted with thrusters. The unveiling came almost nine years after the company first presented a next-generation version of its electric sports car and announced that production would begin in 2028.

During the demonstration, the two-seater—developed with SpaceX, the rocket company led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk—was shown driving upside down on a ramp using a suction system, then rotating in mid-air and landing with the help of onboard thrusters. Whether such features could legally be used on public roads was not immediately clear.

Musk has minimized the car’s financial significance for Tesla, describing it in 2023 as a “small potato situation” that would not “move the needle in a major way financially.” Even so, the vehicle retains symbolic value.

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“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 wrote in a note last month.

Musk and other executives did not announce target prices at Thursday’s event, although Tesla had quoted a base price of $200,000 nearly a decade earlier. After the event, Tesla’s Roadster reservation page listed a “Performance” version requiring a $50,000 deposit and a “Thrust” version with “acceleration thrusters” requiring a $250,000 deposit. A “Rocket” variant, described by Tesla as “invite only,” is a single-seat model with a “full flight system.”

At SpaceX’s test site in McGregor, Texas, Musk said the Roadster can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than one second and reach a top speed above 230 mph.

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Tesla revealed a prototype in 2017 and said then that deliveries would begin in 2020. In 2017, Musk set high expectations, saying a four-seat Roadster would travel 620 miles (1,000 km) on a single charge.

Goldstein expects Tesla to sell about 2,000 Roadsters a year—a small fraction of the 1.6 million vehicles Tesla sold last year.

The original Roadster, sold from 2008 to 2012, was Tesla’s first EV and used a Lotus Elise chassis. It helped reshape global perceptions of what an electric vehicle could be. Tesla has since become known for the Model Y and Model X SUVs and the Model S and Model 3 sedans.

The second-generation Roadster’s reveal also coincides with a sharp shift in Tesla’s focus toward AI-driven self-driving technology and robotics, rather than manufacturing cars for human drivers. This year, Tesla stopped selling Model S and X vehicles to free production capacity for its Optimus humanoid robots. It also launched Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi without manual controls such as a steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors.