Tesla started its risky gamble taking on the auto industry more than a decade ago, with a roadster. A glorious little roadster, at that. Now that it has established itself as a profitable company, that little driver’s car is coming back.
CEO Elon Musk says Tesla has finished engineering on the two-door sports car. In response to a question from Twitter user Earl of Frankenpuppy (it’s fun to be a journalist in 2021 because we get to quote the Earl) Musk says Tesla aims to have it in production in 2022.
From 2008 to 2012, the Tesla Roadster was the company’s only product. Based on a Lotus Elise chassis, it was the first highway-legal all-electric car to use lithium-ion batteries. It’s the first EV to travel more than 200 miles on a single charge. The roadster takes full advantage of the immediate power from its electric motor, sprinting to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds.
The Roadster in Space
There’s even one in space. Musk sent his own personal roadster into solar orbit as the dummy payload in a 2018 test of the Falcon Heavy rocket built by SpaceX, one of several companies he helped found.
The Price of the Tesla Roadster
Tesla has been planning a follow-up to the little ragtop for years. It began taking deposits more than three years ago. Company communications from 2017 promised a 0-to-60 time under two seconds, and a driving range of 620 miles. The price is about $250,000.
The company release CGI images of a proposed design back in 2017 (above) but said they weren’t necessarily the final product. And, given that the images show a hardtop coupe and not the open-top design implied by the word “roadster,” we wouldn’t be surprised to see something different when Tesla has a prototype to show.
