Tesla's Roadster Unveil Is Set for October 15, After Seven Different Production Dates
Hardware / news
Tesla's Roadster Unveil Is Set for October 15, After Seven Different Production Dates
The 2017 reservation spec promised a 1.9-second 0-60 mph run for $200,000. The new teaser claim is under one second, and Tesla has now postponed the show once for weather.
Tesla will unveil the new Roadster on Thursday, 15 October 2026 at 7:55 p.m. Central, two weeks after it called off a 1 October event in Texas, according to Electrek. Nobody outside Tesla has yet seen a production specification for the car.
Tesla announced the postponement on 28 September. Its X post said it had been "tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists," and that the event "can only be held outdoors," in the wording quoted by Electrek. Electrive checked the Waco forecast for 1 October and found warm temperatures, some wind and rain, and wrote that it "remains unclear" what Tesla counts as severe.
What was promised in 2017, and what is claimed now
The 2017 reservation spec was four seats, a 620-mile range, 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds and a $200,000 price, Electrek reports. The current teaser claim, from Elon Musk, is 0-60 mph in under one second using SpaceX cold gas thrusters. Electrek labels that claim unverified, and electrive notes that a jet system of that kind may struggle to win EU approval for public roads.
Reservations carry real money. Electrek lists $50,000 reservations and a $250,000 Founders Series. In Germany, electrive reports an initial deposit of €4,000 followed by a €39,000 bank transfer within ten days, and says it is not yet clear what the deposit covers.
Seven production dates, six revisions
The number that matters is not the 1.9 seconds but the date a customer can expect a car. Electrek's timeline of production promises:
| Date of statement | Production promised for |
|---|---|
| November 2017 | 2020 |
| July 2020 | 2021 |
| January 2021 | 2022 |
| September 2021 | 2023 |
| May 2023 | 2024, "hopefully" |
| February 2024 | 2025 |
| November 2025 | 2027 or 2028 |
In May 2023 Musk said of the 2024 target, "this is not a commitment," per Electrek. In February 2024 the design goals were "radically increased." The unveil itself has slipped too: the original target was the end of 2025, then 1 April 2026, then late May or June, then a delay while SpaceX worked on the thruster system, and then 1 October.
Between the first statement and the latest, the production target has moved from 2020 to 2027 or 2028, a gap of seven to eight years that no spec sheet closes.
What to look for on Thursday
Electrek's own read is blunt: "Tesla has shown the Roadster plenty of times. It has never shipped it." A fair test of the event is whether Tesla states a production start, a price and a deposit treatment, and whether it shows a car that is driven rather than posed. Mid-August, Musk teased a "flying" demo with no driver, which is not a road-legal specification.
The Roadster also sits against Tesla's charging business, where Supercharger prices now top the US fast-charging average. Doug Field, a former Tesla EV chief, has moved to Rivian's Mind Robotics.
The stream starts at 7:55 p.m. Central on 15 October; the first falsifiable figure will be whatever production year Tesla puts on the slide.
Sources
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