Tesla teases its next-gen Roadster once again, but don't get your hopes up

Tesla's next-generation Roadster was officially announced back in 2017 and was scheduled to be released in 2020. Five years have passed since that moment, and in that span Elon Musk promised that the Roadster was almost ready for production a few dozen times. It has become a meme at this point.

Potentially more interesting, this time the teaser comes from Lars Moravy, head of vehicle engineering at Tesla. He said that the upcoming Roadster will be "the last best driver's car" and hinted that the engineering team "showed Elon some cool demos last week."

The implication being that the new Tesla Roadster will launch very soon and will be the last vehicle designed for driving enthusiasts before self-driving takes over. That could mean that the company will shift its focus to self-driving and all future models will be designed with this in mind.

Even though Lars Moravy's comments sound promising, it's important to note that Musk teased several "cool demos" over the years, but we are still waiting for the Roadster. In fact, many people placed deposits ranging from $50,000 to $250,000, and there's no Roadster in sight.

When Elon Musk first revealed the next-gen Roadster, the vehicle's specs sounded outlandish at the time - 620 miles range on a single charge and 1.9 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h acceleration, but competing brands have already launched their all-electric supercars, so if the Roadster does eventually show up it might face fierce competition in this segment. And that's if we don't see a repeat of the Cybertruck fiasco where the final product came way short of the promised numbers.

Via