Tesla schedules another Roadster reveal in Waco after weather postponement
Tesla says it will livestream a Roadster event on October 15, reviving a car first unveiled in 2017. Its performance figures remain company claims.
Tesla has scheduled another reveal of its long-delayed Roadster for Thursday, October 15, in Waco, Texas, after postponing an October 1 event because of bad weather. Business Insider reports that Tesla plans to livestream it at 7:55 p.m. Central Time. The event puts renewed attention on a car first unveiled in 2017, for which Tesla has taken substantial reservation payments but whose advertised performance remains a set of company claims.
According to Business Insider, admission to the event is limited to reservation holders who received tickets directly. The livestream gives other interested viewers a way to watch the presentation, while the in-person restriction places some of the people who committed money to the Roadster at the event itself. The reports establish a scheduled unveiling, rather than a completed presentation or the start of customer deliveries.
Why Roadster reservation holders have waited since 2017
Tesla announced the next-generation Roadster in November 2017 and began taking reservations that year. Business Insider says it requested $50,000 for a reservation on the base car and $250,000 upfront for a Founders Series version. Those amounts make the long interval between the original announcement and Thursday’s planned event consequential for customers who reserved a vehicle, as well as for anyone considering Tesla’s latest presentation of it.
Elon Musk acknowledged that wait on an October 2024 earnings call. Business Insider reports that he thanked deposit holders and called them ‘long-suffering.’ The remark came years after the 2017 unveiling and before this rescheduled event. It is a recognition from Tesla’s chief executive of the reservation holders’ prolonged wait, not a delivery timetable.
Some prominent reservation holders have already changed course. Business Insider reports that OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman canceled his Roadster reservation, while technology reviewer Marques Brownlee canceled one of his two. Their decisions offer examples of customers responding to the delay; the reporting does not establish how many reservation holders overall have canceled or kept their places.
Tesla’s Roadster specifications remain claims
Tesla has promoted the Roadster with unusually ambitious figures. Business Insider lists a promised acceleration time of 1.9 seconds from zero to 60 mph, a top speed above 250 mph, range of up to 620 miles and a 200-kWh battery pack. The Verge also reports Musk’s claim that the car could reach 60 mph in under two seconds and exceed 250 mph. Those figures describe what Tesla and Musk have said the Roadster could do; neither report establishes them as independently demonstrated results for the new car.
Musk has also described an optional SpaceX package using cold-gas thrusters and said it could let the car ‘fly a little,’ according to The Verge. That proposal adds to the questions surrounding what Tesla will actually show in Waco. The report identifies the thruster package as a claim by Musk, not a feature shown to be ready for customers.
The speed pitch has a relevant point of comparison within Tesla’s existing range. The Verge says the Model S Plaid, released in 2021, carried a claimed zero-to-60-mph time of 1.99 seconds excluding a one-foot rollout, and cites independent testing that confirmed that figure. A fast production Tesla therefore provides context for the Roadster’s acceleration target, while the Roadster’s own advertised numbers still require evidence specific to that vehicle.
What Thursday’s Waco presentation is set to show
The Verge describes Thursday’s event as a production-ready debut and places it alongside Tesla’s earlier announcements of the Semi in 2017 and Cybercab in 2024. That description helps explain why another Roadster unveiling draws scrutiny: the car has already had an initial public introduction, and an updated presentation can show how Tesla now intends to position it. A production-ready description does not itself establish when manufacturing or deliveries will begin.
For reservation holders, the immediate confirmed change is the replacement of the October 1 date with a scheduled October 15 event and livestream. The presentation may give them a new look at the Roadster after years of waiting. Whether it supplies evidence for the promised specifications, the proposed SpaceX package or a timetable for receiving cars depends on what Tesla presents at the event.
Sources and context
- Elon Musk is about to reveal the new Roadster — againBusiness Insider
- The Tesla Roadster could have stayed vaporwareThe Verge
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.
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