The Roadster was announced, as a surprise, in 2017, when they announced the Semi; my suspicion is because the Semi is 'boring' and Elon wanted something for the Twitter crowd. At the time, Tesla said that the car would “smack down” all gasoline-powered cars with its superior performance. It promised to do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, a quarter mile in 8.8 seconds, and have a top speed of 250+ miles per hour and a 200-kWh battery.
Since then, Tesla released the Model S Plaid, which has similar performance numbers for its 0-60 and quarter-mile time.
The Roadster was originally slated to hit the market in 2020. In 2020, the Roadster was pushed back to 2021. In 2021, it was delayed until 2022 and then later delayed until 2023, which was confirmed again last year.
On May 16, 2023, Elon tweeted about his 10 SpaceX rockets being attached to the Roadster, once again, surprise of all surprises, delaying it until 2024. In that same timeframe, he stated the SpaceX rockets would allow the car to “hover” and Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said they would make the car an “exciting flying machine.”
Now, in 2024, he is pushing it back to 2025, but this time instead of just hovering and flying, it's going to hit you with 3Gs of force as you go 0-60 in < 1 s. With what, an eighty foot rollout?
Given so many of the promises of the Cybertruck not materializing, even when the Roadster eventually materializes (that is, if it materializes), it's not going to "hover," "fly," or go 0-60 in <1s. It's also not going to have rockets attached to it and be street-legal.
It's a concept car. It's just that instead of calling it one, Elon likes to pretend it's a real car. Other manufacturers accept that they occasionally make concept cars to make a splash, and don't lie to their buyers about what the car will have.
I had a reservation for a Roadster. I got tired of waiting.
www.motor1.com
