““Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster. There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car.””
Entrepreneur and businessman Elon Musk was stirring up excitement on his X platform early Wednesday, promising Tesla’s
TSLA,
Roadster electric sports car will finally ship next year, with “production design complete and unveil” at the end of 2024.
The Tesla CEO’s comments were tacked onto a pair of posts on X (at the time Twitter) from 2018, where he teased a “SpaceX option package” for the Roadster — “10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car.”
Musk, who also heads commercial space exploration company SpaceX, repeated in his Wednesday post that the Roadster would be a “Tesla/SpaceX collab.”
The ultraluxury sports car was originally announced in 2017, but has seen delays due to the COVID pandemic and ensuing global supply chain issues. In 2017 Musk promised the Roadster would be on the roads by 2020 and in 2021 he updated that by setting a new target of 2023, providing 2022 wasn’t “mega drama.”
“I think it has a shot at being the most mind-blowing product demo of all time,” Musk posted, adding that users would love it more than their houses. One poster suggested he was making a “rocket on wheels,” to which Musk said “of course,” saying the Roadster was targeting a speed of 0-60 mph in under 1 second.
The fresh Roadster teases from Musk come amid reports Apple
AAPL,
is reportedly scrapping an ambitious, decadelong effort to develop a self-driving electric car.
Apple and Tesla have been two of the weakest links in the “Magnificent Seven” group of technology companies credited with driving stock market gains last year and into 2024. So far this year shares of Apple
AAPL,
are down 5% and Tesla stock has dropped nearly 20%, on earnings disappointment from the pair.
