New Delhi: After almost nine years of missed dates, Tesla showed its next Roadster on Thursday night at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas. The event streamed from near Waco, and the car is built around SpaceX hardware including thrusters, carbon-overwrapped pressure vessels, diffusers and big fans. It did look like nothing else on the road. Whether any ordinary person will ever own one is another matter.
What it’s made of
The short version is weight reduction taken to an extreme. The prototype is built to be as light as possible, with steer-by-wire and a yoke instead of a wheel. Tesla said every usable void in the car is packed with carbon fiber overwrapped pressure vessels, which are tanks for the compressed gas that drives the thrusters. Those tanks are the same type that sat behind several SpaceX rocket explosions, which is a detail worth sitting with if you imagine one parked in your garage.
Under the skin it’s an electric car with three motors. All three trims get 300 miles of range and top speeds above 230 mph. Tesla didn’t say much about battery size or charging.
Does it fly?
Sort of, and “fly” is generous. The thrusters are cold gas, meaning compressed gas pushed out of nozzles, not burning fuel. One report says the car flipped in midair, hovered, and hit 60 mph in 0.81 seconds. CNBC’s wording was under a second to 60. That’s a stunt, and a short one. Electrek’s Fred Lambert was blunt beforehand: a cold gas thruster gets a few bursts per tank, does nothing on a normal drive, and adds weight and cost. I think that’s a fair worry. Nobody is commuting through the sky in this thing.
What it costs Tesla
Tesla hasn’t said, and I won’t guess. Carbon fiber structure, pressure vessels and rocket-grade parts are expensive, and this is clearly a low-volume car. CNBC called it a high-end, low-volume model. A company doesn’t usually publish its unit cost anyway, but it’s telling that even the sticker price is missing.
What it costs you
Here’s the part most readers care about, and the honest answer is that it’s unknown. Musk said Tesla will finally build the car in 2028 but didn’t name a price. The only numbers are the old ones and the deposits. Back in 2017, Tesla teased availability in 2020 at a starting price of $200,000. Now there are three versions: Performance, Thrust and Rocket. One outlet reports reservations require $50,000 for Performance and $250,000 for Thrust, while Rocket is invite only. CNBC says the $50,000 deposits are being accepted in the U.S., Canada and China.
Think about that. A $50,000 deposit buys you a place in line for a car with no price, due two years out, from a company that has missed this date repeatedly. Tesla first showed the Roadster in November 2017 and promised production in 2020. It hasn’t delivered a single one. Still, if the entry trim lands near the old $200,000 figure, that’s well outside what most of us will ever spend on a car. The rest of us will watch the clips.
Warranty and guarantees
Nothing has been announced. No warranty terms, no battery coverage, no word on how a thruster system would be covered or insured. That last one is a real question. Pressurized tanks packed through the body, a rocket-derived option package and a road-legal car don’t fit neatly into any warranty template I know of. Regulators haven’t weighed in either, at least not publicly. Until Tesla publishes terms, treat anything you read about coverage as speculation, including mine.
If you do put down a deposit, read the reservation agreement closely. Find out whether it’s refundable, what happens if the price comes in far above expectations, and what happens if the date slips again. Given the history, that last scenario deserves the most thought.
Bottom line
The reveal was theatrical, and the engineering ideas are interesting even if the practical value of a hovering coupe is thin. What we still lack is everything a normal buyer would ask about: price, delivery date, warranty, and whether the thruster option can legally be used anywhere outside a test site. Musk called it “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.” Maybe so. I’d wait for the paperwork before believing in it.
