It has been a long time since the new Tesla Roadster was announced, with no official launch date in site. Tesla said last year that it would start production and shipments of the Roadster in 2022, but those plans were scuppered by the global pandemic. Elon Musk has now said that “assuming 2022 is not mega drama, new Roadster should ship in 2023.”
Read: Samsung has built a 200-megapixel phone camera sensor
Musk has blamed the ongoing supply chain shortages for the ever-lengthening timelines. The new generation Roadster was first announced in November 2017, which claimed acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 1.9 seconds – a feat recently achieved by its newly launched Tesla Model S Plaid model. Other early announcements from Tesla claimed that the Roadster would have a 200kWh battery pack and a 1,000km range.
At the initial launch, Tesla said that production of the Roadster would start sometime in 2020. Tesla is renowned for overpromising of deadlines and subsequent under delivery. Since the 2017 launch, Tesla has been taking $50,000 deposits for the base model and $250,000 deposits for the higher-end Founders Series model. These continuing delays will naturally make many people unhappy, although Tesla haven’t shared any details about how many pre-orders have been cancelled in subsequent years.
2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2021
Assuming 2022 is not mega drama, new Roadster should ship in 2023.
A major reason for the latest delays in production is the global chip shortage. Tesla has reportedly been substituting different chips to keep up production of its current models and has been rewriting its software to support it.
The Tesla Roadster isn’t their only model that has been delayed for long periods of time – the Cybertruck still hasn’t seen the light of day and is now expected to start shipments sometime in 2022.
Would you put up with these delays if you have put money down for a new car? Let us know in the comments down below.
