Tesla is supposed to imminently unveil its new Roadster after years of delays

Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims the long-awaited next-generation Roadster will finally be unveiled by the end of the month, which is days away. If it actually happens, it would come nearly nine years after the original prototype was first shown in November 2017.

We’ve been down this road before — many, many times. Here’s the latest on where things stand and how we got here.

A history of broken promises

The second-generation Tesla Roadster was first unveiled as a prototype in November 2017, during the Tesla Semi launch event. At the time, Musk promised production would begin in 2020, with the electric supercar boasting specs that sounded almost too good to be true: 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a 620-mile range from a 200 kWh battery pack, a top speed above 250 mph, and a base price of $200,000.

Tesla immediately began collecting deposits — $50,000 for a standard reservation and a staggering $250,000 for one of the first 1,000 “Founders Series” units. Thousands of people put down their money, expecting to be behind the wheel within a few years.

That didn’t happen. What followed is one of the longest strings of broken timelines in automotive history:

In July 2020, Musk said the Roadster would come in “the next 12-18 months.” In January 2021, he pushed production to 2022. By September 2021, it was delayed to 2023. At the May 2023 shareholder meeting, Musk moved the target to 2024. In February 2024, he promised an unveil of the production version by the end of that year with deliveries starting in early 2025. By October 2024, on Tesla’s Q3 earnings call, Musk admitted production was delayed again to 2025-2026. Then in November 2025, at a shareholder meeting, Musk announced production wouldn’t begin until 2027 or 2028 — a full seven to eight years behind the original promise.

At that same November 2025 meeting, Musk said a Roadster “demo” would happen on April 1, 2026. Yes, April Fools’ Day. And he openly acknowledged it gave him “deniability because I can say I was just kidding.”

Latest developments

In March 2026, Musk shifted his language from “demo” to “unveil,” posting on X that the Roadster reveal would come in late April and would be “a banger next-level.” He told followers the production vehicle will be “very different than what we’ve shown previously.”

There are some tangible signs of progress, at least on paper. In February 2026, Tesla filed two new trademark applications with the USPTO, including one featuring an updated vehicle silhouette with a sleeker profile and a squarer roofline compared to the 2017 prototype. The company also filed patent applications for an integrated single-piece composite seat.

In October 2025, Tesla posted a job listing for a “Manufacturing Engineer, Roadster” focused on “concept development and launch of battery manufacturing equipment” — a listing that, while encouraging, also confirmed the vehicle was still in the very early stages of manufacturing development.

Performance claims have somehow escalated during the years of delays. In February 2024, Musk stated on X that the new design goal for the production Roadster included acceleration from 0-60 mph in under one second. The optional “SpaceX package,” first announced in 2018, would reportedly include roughly 10 small cold-air rocket thrusters to enhance cornering, braking, and acceleration. Whether any of this will materialize in the production vehicle remains entirely unclear.

Reservation holders growing frustrated

The delays haven’t been purely academic for everyone involved. Some reservation holders have been sitting on $50,000 or $250,000 deposits for nearly a decade with nothing to show for it.

The issue became very public in October 2025 when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attempted to cancel his Roadster reservation, which he had placed in July 2018, only to find that Tesla’s contact email for the Roadster program had been shut down. Altman publicly aired his frustration, calling it a long wait. Musk responded by claiming the refund was processed within 24 hours — but only after the situation went public.

Tesla also promised some 80 free Roadsters to owners who referred enough vehicle purchases and offered significant discounts on hundreds more units through its referral program. None of those commitments have been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, the competitive landscape has shifted dramatically since 2017. While Tesla was busy not building the Roadster, Xiaomi’s SU7 Ultra and BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme have already set real-world performance records. The Rimac Nevera has been in customer hands for years.

Electrek’s Take

I’ll believe it when I see it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 167 times, which is what I feel Tesla has done to all of us with the new Roadster, shame on me.

We have been covering this vehicle since its prototype debut in 2017, and at every turn, Musk has pushed back the timeline with new promises that proved equally hollow. We’re now on at least the seventh promised production date, and we still haven’t seen a production-intent vehicle — just trademarks, job listings, and tweets.

The shift from “demo” to “unveil” is interesting, and the trademark filings suggest Tesla has at least been doing some work. But even if an unveil does happen this month, production is still targeted for 2027-2028. That means the first customers who put down deposits in 2017 will have waited a full decade before getting their cars — if it happens at all.

What makes this especially frustrating is that the performance claims have only grown more outlandish as the delays have mounted. We went from 1.9-second 0-60 to under one second. We went from a sports car to a car with rocket thrusters. At some point, the Roadster stopped being a vehicle in development and became a hype machine. We genuinely hope Tesla proves us wrong this month.