We still don’t know who the next James Bond will be, but it’s possible that his car got cast last night: At an event in Texas, Tesla CEO Elon Musk staged and livestreamed a long-awaited demonstration of the next-generation Roadster, which many viewers found to be out of this world. Putting the “launch” in product launchBefore the event, Musk said the revamped Roadster would be “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.” In the demo, he described it as the result of “a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company”: - The car used its fan suction system to generate enough downforce to drive upside down on a parabolic ramp, spin around, and then activated thrusters to glide to a landing.
- Later, the Roadster did an aerial kick flip over a line of five parked Tesla vehicles before landing smoothly.
- In a pre-recorded segment, the Roadster appeared to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than a second using the thrusters.
Three trims of the Roadster are planned: “Performance” (the “road ready” one), “Thrust” (a “race ready” option), and “Rocket” (the “air ready” configuration that seats one and can do the sickest of the moves displayed). The long and bumpy road: The original Tesla Roadster was the EV maker’s first car, offered in 2008. Production ended in 2012. In 2017, Musk teased a second-generation Roadster. Since then, according to instances enumerated by TechCrunch, he delayed its reveal seven times. Yesterday, he said it would go into production in “2028, actually.” Musk didn’t provide pricing for the rebooted Roadster, but Tesla’s website requires a $50,000 deposit for the Performance trim and a $250,000 deposit for the Thrust to get on the waiting lists. The Rocket trim is available “by invite only.” Zoom out: The Verge wrote, “Some analysts theorize that the decision to re-release the Roadster is an attempt to set the stage for a rumored Tesla-SpaceX merger.”—HVL |
