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Tesla Roadster Is Not a Priority, Says Company's Chief Designer Franz Von Holzhausen

Tesla Roadster is a product few talk about lately, although it has been in development longer than the Semi. In a recent interview, Tesla’s chief designer Franz Von Holzhausen promised that the Roadster would be well worth the wait and turn out better “on every metric” than the 2.0 prototype unveiled in 2017.
Tesla Roadster is not a priority 7 photos
Photo: Tesla
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Tesla Cybertruck is the talk of the town now, but there are other products in Tesla’s lineup that people are still waiting to be unveiled. One of them is the Roadster, a model whose second generation was introduced to the public in 2017 alongside the Semi. With the electric Class-8 truck now in production and in customers’ fleets, it would be appropriate for Tesla to focus on the Roadster. The electric sports car has a bit of a problem, though: it is not a volume model, and Tesla is now more concerned with mass electrification.

This is the main reason the Roadster has taken the back burner, although the development has never stopped, as Franz von Holzhausen assures us. In his latest interview with Ryan McCaffrey in the Ride the Lightning podcast, von Holzhausen let it be known that the Roadster will be worth the wait, a phrase that we’ve also heard about the Cybertruck. Tesla’s chief designer says the team improved on the specs of the Roadster 2.0 introduced in 2017.

“We’re developing the car. I think you know we have priorities as a company, and the priorities are mass electrification. And Roadster is not a mass product,” von Holzhausen said. “So, unfortunately, you know it takes its kind of position, but we are working on it in earnest. And I think the time that we’ve taken had enabled us to really improve on basically every metric that we set out to establish when we first debuted that.”

Von Holzhausen didn’t offer more details about the upcoming Roadster but invited everyone to an imagination exercise, giving the Tesla Model S Plaid as an example. This is startling, considering that the luxury sedan has matched the Roadster in almost every aspect performance-wise, a feat that nobody thought would be possible. Also, while doing this imagination exercise, we can’t refrain from thinking about the hefty weight of a Model S Plaid. Cramming such a powerful drivetrain into the smaller and lighter chassis of the Roadster would be a real feat.

While the Tesla Roadster development might be delayed, recent reports claimed that Tesla’s supercar would still come to market before the Cybertruck. According to an AutoForecast Solution report, the electric roadster is slated for a July 2023 production start, whereas the Cybertruck will only start rolling off the production line in October. It remains to be seen whether Tesla will follow analysts’ expectations or it would pursue more urgent projects.

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About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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