Musk teases Tesla Roadster demo this year, been hyping it since 2017
Toyota Motor Corp Chairman Akio Toyoda exits Tesla Motor’s Roadster electric car with Tesla Motors Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk (in the back of the car) as they arrive at a news conference in Tokyo on November 12, 2010.
Issei Kato | Reuters
Eight years ago Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk introduced the new generation Roadster, taking the name of the sports car from the company’s first electric vehicle in 2008.
The updated version has not yet gone into production. However, Musk once again promises that a new one is on the way.
One argument Musk was asked about the long-delayed vehicle by podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday. He offered insight into the timing but declined to share updated technical or design details.
“I can’t make the statement before the announcement,” Musk said. As he previously said, Musk claimed that the new Roadster “has a chance to be the most memorable product ever introduced.”
Musk said Tesla aims to show the updated Roadster to fans and investors “before the end of the year.”
Musk’s comments came a day after his former close friend, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said: sent He said he tried to cancel his 2018 Roadster reservation at X and get his deposit back. He shared a screenshot showing that the email he sent to the company was bounced.
“I was really excited about the car!” Altman wrote. “I understand the delays. But 7.5 years seems like a long time to wait.”
Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, is in a heated legal dispute with Altman and now runs rival artificial intelligence startup xAI.
Patrick George, editor-in-chief of InsideEVs and a longtime industry observer, told CNBC on Friday that the Roadster “has been MIA for years.”
“The only thing I can think of that would get Musk to start talking about this again is that Sam Altman of OpenAI, who is sort of his arch-rival, recently said he was trying to cancel the Roadster reservation he’s held since 2018,” George said.
Earlier this year, popular gadget and auto critic Marques Brownlee discussed In an interview with the Waveform Podcast, he described the difficult process of canceling his own Roadster reservation.
The Roadster is a high-end, low-volume model, something that aims to challenge vehicles like BYD’s YangWang U9 Xtreme. was recently crowned The world’s fastest production car.
He faces a major Tesla shareholder vote next week as Musk and his board ask investors to approve a large pay package.
The payout plan would give Musk about $1 trillion in Tesla shares and increase his stake to about 25%, depending on the company reaching various market valuations and other growth milestones.
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