Vehicles - Roadster
Next-gen Roadster reservations: Performance, Thrust (limited, one per customer), and Rocket (invite only). Thrust is $5,000 due today and $245,000 due within 10 days.
I heard they invited all the people who paid for the founders edition. So they probably will get what was demo'd today.
Configurations
– Performance: road ready, seats 2
Active aerodynamics & multi-mode suction system for next-level performance on & off the track
– Thrust: race ready, seats 2
Multi-mode suction system paired w/ rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters that enable 0–60 in <1 second
– Rocket: air ready, seats 1
Multi-mode suction system plus perimeter-mounted cold-gas thrusters supporting forward & upward acceleration plus lateral rotational movement. So...yes, it can fly
Those with founders reservations have gotten updated to thrust model. None at rocket so truly invite only. And its probably very very very rare that theyll deliver rocket to customers but yea.
If I was a reservation holder, id be upset more than anything. I rather have pld design with the old specs and the 620 mile range
I wouldn’t. I watched the Hagerty walk around with the vp of engineering. They realized range is pointless for a sports car—you want speed of charging and lightweight. They achieved that. It’s exactly what it should be.
Paying $250,000 within 10 days on the Thrust for a car that ships in 2028 is the part that stands out. That's a long time to have a quarter million parked with Tesla.
O hi Tim. Wasn't it $50k for original reservation? I sure hope that Tesla will honour these customers' loyalty and let them buy the new Roadster for $250k, even though the base model will surely be more expensive.
It was a $50k deposit for the "base" $200k Roadster 2.0. There was also a special $250k "Founder's Edition" announced at the same time that required the full $250k upfront as a deposit to reserve.
Let’s remember, to the people reserving this car, that’s pocket change.
Also since it’s limited supply I can see the price more than doubling once it comes out so it will likely still be a worthwhile investment, IF it actually comes out…
The people that can afford that likely don’t need it. The people that can’t afford it that spend it are morons that deserve to be parted from their money.
Yeah I really want to know what the price is for each tier. I assume performance would have to be at least $250k when delivered. If the thrust is >$250k, I’m assuming $500k+ as a deposit should be less than 50% of the cost if I’m just making numbers up out of my ass… who knows if/when a real price reveal.
You could always buy the model x or y. Also suv's make up 60% of new car options in the US compared to 15% coupes and sedans so I would say that kind of is a problem for consumer choices
We dont need a super low sports car for daily driving either. Makes no sense. uncomfortable to get in, to sit in, no storage, too fast. This thing should not be a street car... like many evs today. TOO FAST
+ too dangerous, shooting debris out of the back and so on... and fucking loud (thrusters)
My corvette has more storage than my sedan, its more comfortable than my sedan, I dont have the knees of a 90yo so I dont struggle to get in/out, and there's a neat little thing called discipline that stops you from driving too fast when you're not supposed to.
The YL still isn’t big enough for a lot of families. A proper mid-sized SUV that was a reasonable increase in price over the Y would sell extremely well.
You gave them money for the roadster 10 years ago and they didn’t deliver. Now they want a quarter of a million with rockets and expect them to deliver?
It's a fairly simple system - the COPV is a relatively simple system, the canister, two valves and 4 pipes.
I am not sure how many cycles it will last, but they reuse the rocket ones many times and I assume the rocket ones are much larger, so harder to make last long time.
The rocket ones seem like a dangerous thing to sell to the public though.
the flying version is obviously a PR gimmick, and a great one at that.
The headache of safety, permissions, regulations of the jet means it will never be seen outside of youtube vids and stunts..
You say COPV is a “relative simple system” and other cars like Toyota have it, but Toyota is a fuel system, this is a thrust system. It will never be delivered. Like the roadster gen 2 or the bunch of other features the cybertruck did not/under deliver on. Also, the fan for downforce will not be a thing.
It will make the car not street legal. Roads are not designed/built with those functions in mind. A tack would be a suitable place but also the car is more than likely going to suffer damage because majority of tracks are not clean enough of debris.
I didn’t say Toyota has it, where did you get it from?
I just saw the video of the system and they showed it. It’s the balloon and two valves plus four pipes.
I am talking about the trust one, not the flying one. The flying one will be very limited and they will make maybe a hundred max. “By invitation only”.
The thrust one though - it’s not that complicated, just sending the gas backwards. There is some software controlled stuff so it doesn’t veer off. But it could be totally possible. If you are willing to pay the price
You didn’t mention Toyota, but I was adding the point because it uses the same storage technology, which is why I mentioned it as it provides a baseline for comparison. Look up Toyota Mirai it already has the COPV tanks. The uses will be different but same storage system for hydrogen
Even if I had $50k-$250k laying around why would I ever make a deposit on a car that will never see the light of day lmao
I've owned a Tesla (Model 3). Had it for about a year and got rid of it after having countless issues along with me being dumb enough to purchase the "FSD" upgrade, but hey, at least that juiced my resale price a bit.
I fell for Elon's lies once and I never will again. It's just incredible to me that many continue to do so.
IMO this was all a stunt to deflect headlines away from Elon giving $250M to Paxton's disasterous senate campaign while also raising $ for Tesla/Elon to do with what they want. Sure, its a liability on their balance sheet, but you and I both know Tesla/Elon won't just let that $$$ collect dust on a shelf.
I own every Tesla model, including the Cybertruck, except the Roadster! Playing devil's advocate, an unmanned demonstration averaging 3.38 G is an extraordinary engineering feat, but putting a human inside demands rigorous biomechanical and spinal injury risk assessment.
Credit where it's due! Even with my brilliant multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers, my robotics company would struggle to replicate this achievement. Truly impressive engineering but not sure if it's practical street legal vehicle.
Anyone that puts money down into this deserves to lose it.
This will never be delivered, and a Hollywood style stunt that bears no relation to anything an actual car would do just makes that even more certain. It's pure smoke and mirrors people. There is no new Tesla Roadster and there never will be.
How realistic would a suction system be on roads with debris? This seems like something that can only be used on an immaculate track. And how much pressure is that tank under if it fails? This looks like so many bad ideas forced on to the design because Musk wanted a show.
the whole car with most of the features will need to be geofenced to tracks. The thrusters with near sonic burst would destroy people windsheilds behind them
One of these will be in Vegas, cruising around Summerlin before I know it. Can’t wait to see it in person. Like all the other exotics I’ll probably never get to see the driver unleash it.
No wonder it took 10 years lol instead of making a practical roadster with a long range they spend thousands of engineering hours making something Musk can masterbate to.
For everyone not understanding why they made this and not another SUV, look at every major car company, the big ones all make a "halo car".
It actually creates a ton of revenue through marketing.
Also, they are driving technological innovation.
I'm not a fan of Tesla in general but this is extremely impressive technology and will create drive innovation
They probably can’t sell it to anyone aside from people only using it as a stage show. No way that thing can ever be on a road regardless of how much a dumbass the person is. Even then I’d think the liability insurance would be insane.
even the thruster mode probably won't be used on open roads. Imagine parking lots with people walking with kids or kicking up rocks on the roads. It's will probably be Geofenced to tracks.
We can argue all day about definition of flying, but the truth is that when you say "flying car", people imagine a road vehicle that also works as an airplane and flies long distances.
The demo they showed is really cool, but it's not a "flying car".
Things that can drive and also fly are always called planes, not cars. Most aircraft could drive considerable distances on their wheels, dozens of miles, if they had the space and surface for it.
This is kinda what I'd expect for a flying car. A "car" that mostly navigates by flying is just an airplane.
That is how I imagined flying cars also but that does not change the fact that a version that flies for shorter distances is also a flying car. If you can go straight up 15 feet that is flying. If you can execute a GOD-DAMNED BARREL ROLL with no external force to flip the car over that is flying.
Maybe you could argue it just launched/hovered/glided for a couple seconds, but that sounds like flight to me.
It's obviously a party trick because it can only do it for 2s, and the primary purpose of those systems is to maximize down force, thrust (eg sub 1s 0-60), and stabilization, but it's still revolutionary.
It is objectively cool, but I am trying to figure out where and how you would ever use it, the downward force it would generate would mean you would have to make sure below you is completely clear, right?
and if your hope is to fly around, why not get a Jetson One instead? It's sticker price is only $148k
Given by how the bottom looked, I dont think it had a full battery pack etc etc like a normal customer car should. Stunt was also dome with Noone in car so they weren't confident enough in its success to put someone inside.
It generated 4700kg of down force when inverted, so it probably had the full pack.
I agree about them doing the stunt with no one in for safety.
And... That's the "Rocket" version of the roadster, which is the highest trim/most expensive, only seata one, and is invite only.
The base just comes with active aero and multi-store mode suction, the middle adds gas thrusters to the back, and the highest version adds additional gas thrusters/etc.
I think it's kind of pedantic to say jumping when the thing has enough thrust to lift off and has full translational and rotational control in the air. It definitely has the capability to lift off, hover for a short bit, and land. They didn't demo that because it would be lame in comparison.
Thanks for sharing! Does anyone know what fraction of the price that $250K covers? I know it used to be the whole price, but I wonder if that changed, given the new features...
Edit: seems like the answer is "less than 1, most likely, but no one knows yet" haha
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u/Midren New to the sub 2d ago
What happened to all the people years ago who put money down on the roadster then? Are they still in the queue or do they have to repay again?