Elon Musk says new ‘mind-blowing’ Roadster will go to 0-60mph in less than a second
Tesla’s upcoming Roadster is going to blow your mind, CEO Elon Musk says.
No. That’s not enough. He did say it was going to be “mind-blowing,” but in order to fully convey the man’s excitement for this vehicle, we have to quote some of Musk’s tweets, which he shared on Wednesday in rapid succession.
“Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster. There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car,” wrote Musk.
He also said the car will actually be a Tesla/SpaceX collaboration, perhaps in line with his previous comments that the Roadster will “actually be able to fly very briefly.”
So what about performance? Musk claims that the 0-60mph time will be under one second. “And that is the least interesting part,” he tweeted.
Once this thing is unveiled, it has a “shot at being the most mind-blowing product demo of all time,” wrote Musk.
MIND-BLOWING, the man said. If you’re not literally jumping up and down with excitement, are you even alive?
Well, it also might be that you remember that this car — a successor to the original Tesla Roadster from 2008 — was originally announced in 2017, and production was scheduled to start in 2020. That was then pushed forward into 2022, then to 2023. It’s now 2024, and Musk claims that production design is complete, with plans to unveil the new, new, new Roadster at the end of 2024, and the goal to ship next year. That’s 2025, if you’re keeping count.
The specs for the Roadster have also changed over time; for example, it was originally supposed to go from 0-60mph in 1.1 seconds. It’s not that hard to shave those seconds on a car that’s not available yet. In fact, I have a car that achieves supersonic speeds. IN MY MIND.
Wild predictions and hyperbole (which we we would never, ever resort to) aside, reading between the lines you’ll probably notice that this might basically be an Elon way of saying that they’ve essentially scrapped the new, new, old Roadster, and they’re (once again) building a completely new one. We’re still very interested to see the Roadster on the road, or in the sky; we’re just not holding our breaths for the launch.