Tesla is set to unveil the redesigned Roadster on Thursday after the electric vehicle maker first showed off a next-generation version of its electric sports car almost nine years ago.
The automaker first revealed a prototype of the $200,000 Roadster in 2017 and the company said at the time that it would begin deliveries in 2020.
Although the price of the Roadster has not been updated, reservations cost buyers $50,000 a piece.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk downplayed the Roadster’s importance to the company’s finances, saying in 2023 that it was a “small potato situation” that wouldn’t “move things in a major way financially.”
While the Roadster may not be a key part of Tesla’s automotive lineup from a financial standpoint, the high-performance luxury sports cars can serve as a platform for the automaker’s technology.
Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said in a note last month that “Tesla does not currently have a halo car, or a high-performance luxury vehicle designed to showcase the best of an automaker’s engineering and technology. The Roadster will be Tesla’s new halo car.”
Musk said in 2017 that a next-generation four-seat Roadster would be able to travel 620 miles on a single charge, although he said in a 2024 X article that the car had been redesigned.
In his update, Musk said the new Roadster would accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than a second, which he said was the “least interesting part,” adding that the vehicle was a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX, the space exploration company that Musk also runs.
Goldstein expects Tesla to sell about 2,000 Roadsters per year, which would be a small fraction of the 1.6 million vehicles the company sold last year.
The original Tesla Roadster was launched in 2008 and on sale until 2012.
It was the company’s first electric vehicle, built on a Lotus Elise chassis, and paved the way for Tesla’s Model Y and Model X SUVs as well as its Model S and Model 3 sedans.
The reveal of the second-generation Roadster comes amid Tesla’s shift in focus toward artificial intelligence (AI) to power self-driving technology and robotics.
Tesla has stopped selling Model S and Model X vehicles to free up space for the production of its Optimus humanoid robots.
The company also launched Cybercab, a two-seater robotaxi that lacks manual controls like a steering wheel, pedals and mirrors.
Tesla’s event for the next-generation Roadster is scheduled to begin Thursday at 8:55 p.m. ET at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas.
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