Tesla Roadster reveal coming after near decade-long wait

After almost a decade of waiting, Tesla has confirmed it will reveal its second-generation Roadster electric supercar early next month, with few known details of what’s in store.

The brand has launched a teaser portal to the Roadster’s live unveiling on its global websites, including Australia's. The portal shows a ticker indicating that the unveiling will be happening on October 1 in the US, or October 2 in Australia at 10:30am AEST.

The only thing accompanying the countdown on the Roadster portal is an image of the Roadster’s rear end, with the car appearing to be floating in space. Tesla also shared the announcement on its X account, with the caption “go for launch”.

Technically, the second-generation Roadster was first revealed in prototype form back in November 2017 – almost nine years ago. 

However, the new teaser image hints that Tesla has made considerable aesthetic changes to the Roadster since it was last revealed. The new version features a full-width LED lightbar across the rear, which is different from the prototype. 

At its initial November 2017 reveal, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the model would be capable of accelerating to 60mph (96km/h) in 1.9 seconds, could hit a top speed of 402km/h, and had an electric range of 998km to a charge.

The Roadster was confirmed to start at US$200,000, with Tesla taking US$50,000 reservations; a special Founders Series was priced at US$250,000.

Tesla has never confirmed how many reservations it accepted from customers for the Roadster, with the brand also removing Roadster pricing from its website in December 2021. 

The following year, Mr Musk said the Roadster would be in customer hands by 2023. 

Responding to a customer on X, he said at the time: “2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship. Assuming 2022 is not a mega drama, new Roadster should ship in 2023.” 

Something else teased by the first image of the new Roadster is the potential for the car to feature cold gas ‘thrusters’ that can improve acceleration and even potentially turn the supercar into a flying car. 

That might sound farfetched, but Mr Musk has repeatedly teased his desires to give the Roadster the ability to fly. Some outlets have reported that SpaceX has developed thruster units for the Roadster, and a special edition model with the ability to briefly jump off the ground could be in the works.

While speaking on an earnings call back in April, Mr Musk told investors the Roadster could be the brand's last manually driven nameplate. In the time since, Tesla has launched its Cybercab – an autonomous two-seater that doesn't have a steering wheel – in the US where it's being used for taxi duties in Austin, Texas.

“It’s going to make sense for our whole lineup to be different autonomous vehicles of different sizes. [...] In fact, long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster," said Mr Musk.

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