Elon Musk Reveals When the Tesla Roadster Will Finally Enter Production

Tesla marked the Roadster's 15th anniversary in February, and many people expected an announcement about the follow-up model. The Roadster 2.0 was introduced to the public in November 2017, alongside the Tesla Semi, and was barely mentioned ever since. Many people placed a deposit to reserve the Roadster, and even today, you can do so if you have nothing better to do with $50,000. That's right, this is the amount of money required to reserve the Roadster, with no guarantees that it will arrive in this life.

Both the Tesla Semi and the Roadster were delayed, mainly because battery production was constrained. Tesla needed as many cells as it could get to ramp up production of the Model 3, which started deliveries the same year, and the Model Y, introduced in 2020. Eventually, Tesla caught up with battery cell production, but the Roadster was already on the back burner. While the Tesla Semi is busy hauling goods for PepsiCo, the Roadster is still missing.

Two years ago, Elon Musk said that Roadster could start deliveries in 2023, "assuming 2022 is not a mega drama." His words reflected the 2020 medical crisis and 2021 supplier crunch affecting the auto industry. Despite a mostly uneventful 2022, the Roadster will not arrive in 2023. In January, Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said the Roadster is not a priority, as Tesla focused on mass electrification. Still, von Holzhausen confirmed that the Roadster development had not been halted, and the final product would be much better than the prototype presented in 2017.

During the 2023 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk was asked about the Roadster's fate and offered an answer that may not be to your liking, especially if you placed a $50,000 deposit. Musk said he expects Tesla to complete the design and engineering of the next-generation Roadster this year. Although he didn't want to promise anything, Musk hoped the production would start next year. Musk repeated von Holzhausen's words in a more poetic fashion, but the message is the same: the Roadster is not a priority.

"The Roadster is not even the icing on the cake," said Musk. "It's the cherry on the icing on the cake." Yes, Tesla Roadster is a niche product and will only see a limited production run, we know it. But it will undoubtedly be a rolling billboard for Tesla, boosting awareness and brand image. Tesla CEO insisted that the Roadster will be a modest contributor to profitability, despite its outrageous projected price of $250,000.