Tesla's Roadster Unveiling Is \"A Few Weeks\" Away. (Yes, Really.)
Franz von Holzhausen said it at Tesla Takeover Europe in Austria: the Roadster unveiling is coming "in a few weeks." I've been waiting years to write that sentence with any confidence, and I'm still not entirely sure I believe it.
But here we are.
A Brief History of Roadster Delays
Tesla originally planned Roadster production to start in 2020. Then it slipped. Then it slipped again. Earlier this year there were dates floated for April and May 2026. Those came and went. Then August 2026 got mentioned. Now Franz, Tesla's chief designer, is using the phrase "a few weeks" at a major event in front of hundreds of people.
That's a little more specific than we've gotten before. I'm cautiously optimistic. The kind of optimism where you don't actually change your plans based on it.
What the Specs Are Supposed to Be
If it delivers what Tesla has promised, the Roadster is genuinely absurd hardware. Tri-motor all-wheel-drive with over 1,000 horsepower. Zero to 60 mph in under 1.9 seconds. Range of approximately 620 miles. Top speed above 250 mph.
Then there's the SpaceX thruster pack option. Cold gas thrusters. Real ones, apparently. Tesla claims those push 0-60 to 1.1 seconds or less. That's not a car anymore. That's something else entirely.
And it seats four people, which I still find slightly difficult to reconcile with everything above. But that's what Tesla says.
The $50,000 Question
Reservation deposits have been sitting at $50,000 since the car was announced. Production was supposed to start in 2020. The people who put that money down have been waiting through six years of slippage, essentially giving Tesla an interest-free loan on a car that kept not arriving.
If Franz's "few weeks" means what it sounds like, those reservation holders are finally about to find out what they actually bought. And what the production price is. Because $50,000 as a deposit implies a car that costs considerably more than that.
What "Unveiling" Actually Means
Worth noting: "unveiling" isn't "deliveries." Tesla has unveiled the Roadster before. The question is how far this gets us toward cars in driveways.
This could mean a physical reveal event with production-intent design. It could mean updated specs and a real order window. One possibility is they're close enough to production that what they show is meaningfully close to what they'll actually build. But we don't know that yet.
What I want to see at the unveiling: a real production timeline, actual pricing tiers, and whether that SpaceX thruster pack is a real option you can order or a concept that quietly disappears.
The Bottom Line
Six years of "soon" has conditioned a certain amount of skepticism. But von Holzhausen doesn't usually make specific timeline claims at public events without something to back them up. "A few weeks" is a short enough window that it'll either happen or it won't, and there won't be much wiggle room for creative reinterpretation.
I'll be watching. And this time, I think there's something real on the other side of the wait.
Source: Teslarati