Tesla set to unveil next-generation Roadster sports EV after years of delays

Tesla's next-generation Roadster is expected to become the company's new halo car, a high-performance vehicle designed to showcase its engineering and technology. (EPA Images pic) SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla is set to unveil its redesigned Roadster on Thursday, nearly nine years after it first showed a next-generation version of its electric sports car.

Tesla revealed a prototype of the US$200,000 car in 2017 and said deliveries would begin in 2020.

The price has not been updated, but reservations are still US$50,000 each.

Chief Executive Elon Musk has played down the car's importance to Tesla's finances, describing it in 2023 as a "small potato situation" that would not "move the needle in a major way financially".

However, the car still carries symbolic weight.

"Tesla does not currently have a halo car, or high-performance luxury vehicle designed to showcase an automaker's best engineering and technology.

"The Roadster will be Tesla's new halo car," Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said in a note last month.

Musk set expectations in 2017, saying a four-seat Roadster would travel 1,000km on a single charge.

In 2024, he posted on X that it had been redesigned. The new Roadster would accelerate from 0 to 100km per hour in less than a second. "And that is the least interesting part," he wrote, adding it was a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX, the rocket company Musk also leads.

Goldstein expects Tesla to sell around 2,000 Roadsters a year — a fraction of the 1.6 million vehicles Tesla sold last year.

The original Roadster, released in 2008 and on sale until 2012, was Tesla's first-ever EV and used a Lotus Elise chassis.

It helped change the world's view of what an electric vehicle could be. The company has since been known for its Model Y and Model X SUVs and Model S and Model 3 sedans.

The reveal of the second-generation Roadster also comes amid a sharp shift in Tesla's focus to artificial intelligence-led self-driving tech and robotics, away from manufacturing cars for human drivers.

This year, Tesla stopped selling Model S and X vehicles to make space for production of its Optimus humanoid robots. It also launched Cybercab - a two-seater robotaxi that comes without manual controls such as a steering wheel, pedals and mirrors.

The Roadster event is set to start at 8.55pm today at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas.