Tesla finally showed its next-generation Roadster on Thursday night, nine years after it first took deposits on the car, and the headline is less about range or price than about thrusters. In a livestream from a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco, a white two-seat prototype drove partway up a curved ramp, clung to it upside down, flipped off it and used cold-gas thrusters to settle back onto the pavement. It later jumped over a line of Teslas that included a Semi.
"Well, it worked," Elon Musk said after the stunt, according to Yahoo Finance. Tesla's on-site timer showed a 0-to-60-mph run of 0.81 seconds. What the company did not provide was a price. Musk gave one date: "We enter production in 2028."
Three versions, and only one is meant for the street
Tesla's Roadster page lists a base car called Performance and two "augments" called Thrust and Rocket. Performance is the road car, with two seats, active aerodynamics and what Tesla calls a multi-mode suction system: fans that pull air from under the car, which Tesla says creates enough downforce to hold the car upside down even when it is standing still. Thrust adds cold-gas thrusters at the rear. Rocket has one seat and thrusters around the body for upward and rotating movement. "So yes, it can fly," Tesla's site says, with a note that Rocket is not approved for public road use.
Next-generation Tesla Roadster versions, as announced
| Version | Seats | Tesla 0-60 mph claim | Thrusters | Availability | Reservation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | 2 | Under 1.6 sec | None | By reservation | $50,000 |
| Thrust | 2 | Under 0.9 sec | Rear | Limited, one per customer | $250,000 |
| Rocket | 1 | Under 0.59 sec | Around the car | Invite only | Not listed |
Sources: tesla.com Roadster and reservation pages; 0-60 claims as reported by Yahoo Finance and Electrek from Tesla's posts. Tesla quotes more than 300 miles of range and up to 230 mph for Rocket. Prices not announced.
Tesla says the car uses magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, a fixed seat position and manual controls to save weight, and steers by wire through a yoke. Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, said 10 thrusters fed by 600 liters of compressed air lift and spin the car, TechCrunch reported, and the tanks can be refilled. Tesla quotes more than 300 miles of range for the lineup.
What it costs to get in line
Tesla's reservation page asks for $5,000 up front, which it calls fully refundable, and the balance within 10 days or the reservation can be canceled. For Performance that balance is $45,000, for $50,000 in total. For Thrust it is $245,000, for $250,000 in total, and Tesla limits Thrust to one order per customer. Rocket is invite only. Yahoo Finance reported that the finished car is expected to cost more than $250,000; Tesla has not confirmed any sticker price.
Those are big checks for a car with a history of slipping. Tesla first showed this Roadster in November 2017 and promised deliveries in 2020. Electrek noted that the 2017 car was billed as a 2+2 with 620 miles of range, a 1.9-second 0-60 time and a top speed above 250 mph. The new car is quicker on Tesla's numbers but quotes roughly half that range and seats two at most. The reveal itself moved several times, most recently from Oct. 1, which Tesla blamed on weather at the test site.
A halo car, not a volume car
Tesla left its FSD driver-assist software out of the Roadster, and Musk said it will be the last vehicle Tesla makes that is meant to be driven by a person, CNBC reported. He also called it a halo car and said he was not sure it would move the needle much on revenue, according to TechCrunch. Gene Munster of Deepwater Management, a longtime Tesla bull, called the event "an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers" in a post on X.
Investors liked the show anyway. Tesla shares rose more than 4% in premarket trading Friday, Yahoo Finance reported. The bigger test comes Wednesday, when Tesla reports third-quarter results. For anyone weighing a deposit, the practical points are simple: the street-legal car is Performance, the price is still unknown, and the only promised date is sometime in 2028.
