Tesla has once again postponed the premiere of the production version of the new Roadster. The car's demonstration has been pushed back until at least August 2026. This is another delay for a model that was first unveiled back in 2017. When the Roadster was first shown, Tesla promised to start production in 2020. However, deadlines have been repeatedly shifted. In recent months, company head Elon Musk has repeatedly named new presentation dates, but the car has yet to receive a full public debut.
The special interest in the project is not only due to its characteristics. Tesla promises to equip the Roadster with a package of SpaceX technologies, including a cold gas thruster system. According to Musk, such a system should radically improve the car's acceleration, braking, and handling. Earlier statements also mentioned acceleration to 100 km/h in less than a second and even the possibility of brief liftoff from the ground.
The official Tesla website still lists impressive specifications: acceleration to 100 km/h in 1.9 seconds, a top speed of over 400 km/h, and a range of about 1000 km. However, all these data remain unconfirmed by a production car.
The most unusual thing about this story is the waiting period. Almost nine years have passed since the announcement, and some customers made deposits back in 2017. During this time, the high-performance electric vehicle market has changed dramatically: new models from Porsche, Rimac, Lotus, and other brands have appeared, while the Roadster still exists mainly as promises and a concept.
For Tesla, the project remains more of an image-building endeavor than a commercial one. Musk himself previously admitted that the Roadster would not be a significant source of revenue for the company. Nevertheless, this car is intended to showcase the brand's most advanced technologies and become a kind of display of Tesla's engineering capabilities.