Tesla delayed the public debut of its next-generation Roadster again, and a report from The Information says the event will now happen in August or later. The automaker has not confirmed or denied the new schedule, so the date could easily change again. But the leaked details outline exactly what executives plan to display at the gathering.
The August timeframe pushes back a timeline Musk gave earlier this year, when he promised an April 1 showcase and then moved the target to late May or early June. The report states the event will take place in Texas. Executives mentioned in May that the supercar will be built in that state. Austin stands as the most likely host city since Tesla runs its main North American factory and corporate headquarters there.
High speed and rocket thrusters
Tesla still advertises the car on its website with a top speed above 250 mph and about 620 miles of range. The upcoming demo will center on a SpaceX-engineered cold gas thruster system. Engineers call the thruster project “A71” internally. Tesla and SpaceX teams gave Musk an internal demonstration of the tech in late April. That internal test implies development remains active and likely contributed to the shifting public timeline.
Musk plans for the SpaceX package to replace the rear seats with high-pressure gas tanks. These tanks feed around 10 cold-air thrusters to boost cornering, braking, and straight-line speed. The most extreme configuration targets a 0–60 mph time near one second. Will the car actually fly? The system might let the car lift briefly off the ground, yet regulators have not approved how such a flying feature would work on public roads.
Tesla is considering at least two distinct versions of the vehicle. One is a limited SpaceX-branded variant with the full thruster suite. The other is a scaled-down Roadster without the rocket hardware, and nobody knows how many SpaceX edition units the factory will build.
A long history of missed deadlines
The Roadster project has faced constant delays since its 2017 surprise reveal. Tesla originally set production for 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic broke supply chains and forced the company to delay the rollout. The pandemic ended years ago, but the car still lacks a firm delivery date.
Customers placed massive deposits early on, and some put down $50,000 for standard reservations. Others paid $250,000 for a limited Founders Series allocation starting in 2017. These buyers have waited nearly a decade with no exact timeline. Rivals like Rimac and Lotus delivered their own high-performance electric models during this waiting period.
Senior executives claim the long wait comes from ambitious performance goals rather than cancellation. Lars Moravy, vice president of vehicle engineering, discussed the progress in July of last year. He said: “Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind-blowing; We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.”
Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen mentioned the car is being pushed to the limits of physics, and he thinks the finished product will justify the wait. Musk framed the Roadster as a driver-focused machine on a recent podcast. He called it the best of the last human-driven cars. He warned that safety is not the main goal compared with mass-market vehicles, which distances the supercar from the company’s full self-driving efforts.
The August timeframe remains tentative, so the date could easily slip into late summer or fall. Tesla did not answer requests for comment. The company has a track record of moving goalposts on this vehicle. Industry watchers expect the eventual event to lock in a final design, but fans should wait for official invitations before booking flights to Texas.
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