Elon Musk has announced that the production version of the Tesla Roadster will finally be revealed before the end of 2024, with deliveries to follow in 2025.
That will be a full seven years since Musk first announced the car in November 2017, making even an elephant’s gestation period seem rapid. The Roadster itself—if and when it does arrive—will be considerably quicker, however, as Musk confirmed on X.
That will be a full seven years since Musk first announced the car in November 2017, making even an elephant’s gestation period seem rapid. The Roadster itself – if and when it does arrive – will be considerably quicker, however, as Musk confirmed on X.
Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster.
There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 28, 2024
“0-60mph < 1 sec,” wrote the Musk-eteer, “And that is the least interesting part.”
The CEO explained that the design goals for the Roadster have been radically increased and claimed “There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car.”
Prior to this announcement Tesla had claimed the Roadster would accelerate from 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds, run the quarter-mile in 8.8 and max out beyond 250mph. It would do this with four seats and a range of 620 miles on a charge.
Musk previously cited a SpaceX option that would include “10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering.”
If the Roadster did match up to Musk’s mutterings it would be the fastest-accelerating car ever seen, eclipsing the McMurtry Spéirling which currently holds the 0-60mph world record at 1.4 seconds. The track-only British car uses a ground effect fan to keep it glued to the road, and special sticky Avon race tyres for traction, yet the Roadster will apparently somehow best it and be road legal.
What’s more, at between £160,000 and £200,000, the Roadster will seriously undercut the £800,000 McMurtry. Of course the Elon has a long history of over-promising and under-delivering so this could all be more hot air. We’ll find out soon enough.
Rockets? Seriously? How can they become road legal. More importantly, the G forces of that rate of acceleration/deceleration could easily cause blackouts, tissue damage, etc. Doubtful that tyres could cope with that either.
Who would want one and how many people would be capable of driving one???
Hang on, it’s not even April fools day yet? Musk-eteer is a bit early!!! There’s no chance it’ll achieve 0-60 in under 1 second, you’d need ‘very’ special road tyres and road surfaces just to be in any chance of getting some traction, let alone going 0-60? Though it’ll surely be heavy enough with all of its batteries. I own the very first Ultima GTR 6.8 race spec SBC which is road legal and capable of 0-60 in just under 3 seconds. And despite weighing in at a little over 900kg, with a tad under 500BHP and 500lb/ft of torque and even with road legal soft block tread tyres on a nice dry race track, let me tell you, getting traction off the line is ‘very’ difficult but a lot of fun!