Tesla’s VP of vehicle engineering has promised the new Roadster will be the “last best driver’s car” when it finally arrives.
The second-generation Tesla Roadster, which was first previewed in 2017, is still coming.
Tesla has assured buyers that the new Roadster is on the way, with vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy, describing the coming Roadster as among the last ‘manually controlled’ vehicles
“’We spent a lot of time in the last few years rethinking what we did, why we did it, and what would make an awesome and exciting last best driver’s car.” Moravy said at the recent X Takeover event in California.
“We’ve been making it better and better, and it’s even a little bit more than a car. We showed Elon some cool demos last week and tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.”
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As Tesla pushes onwards with plans for increasing autonomous vehicle control, the Roadster would become something of an outlier in a product portfolio that could include the fully autonomous Cybercab and Robovan, both revealed in prototype guise in 2024.
Moravy referenced a future where “driving cars turns into a luxury,” defending the Roadster’s remaining physical driver controls.
At its surprise reveal in 2017, the Roadster was pitched with the goal of being the fastest production car, with a claimed 0-97km/h (0-60mph) acceleration claim of 1.9 seconds.
Since Tesla CEO Elon Musk made those claims, Tesla’s own Model S Plaid sedan has recorded a 1.98-second time, and the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT has recorded a 1.77-second 0-97km/h sprint.
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In subsequent updates, Musk has claimed that base model Roadsters would have a 2.1-second acceleration time, and that cold air rocket thrusters could drop the acceleration time as low as 1.1 seconds.
Final specifications are likely to have evolved since its initial reveal, which at the time saw the three-motor Roadster equipped with a massive 200kWh battery capacity and a claimed driving range of 1000km.
At the 2017 reveal, launch timing was announced for 2020. After that timeline passed, the launch was announced to be coming in 2021, before being pushed out to 2023 at a 2021 Tesla shareholders’ meeting.
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The 2023 shareholders’ meeting saw the launch revised to 2024, and in February 2024, the launch was pushed to 2025.
Tesla’s timing comes as other brands have started to delay or cancel plans for their own high-end electric performance cars.
Lamborghini’s planned first electric vehicle is reportedly likely to become a hybrid vehicle instead. Ferrari has an EV on the way, but has put a second electric vehicle on hold.
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Hypercar brands like Pagani and Koenigsegg have so far stayed away from electric vehicles entirely.
While Tesla’s mainstream Model 3 and Model Y still represent the bulk of the brand’s sales, niche products like the Roadster could provide an opportunity to showcase new technologies and provide a higher margin per vehicle.
Final timing and specifications for the second-generation Roadster are yet to be confirmed, but if this latest round of activity is an indicator, details of the production version of the Roadster could be firmed up before the end of 2025.
The post Tesla drops hints that the long-delayed second-gen Roadster is still coming appeared first on Drive.