Tesla Roadster finally revealed in Texas: 0-60 mph in 1 second, thrusters and a short hover

Tesla showed its long-delayed second-generation Roadster at an event outside Waco, Texas, on Thursday, nearly nine years after Elon Musk first pulled the covers off the car in November 2017. Pakistanis watching the stream overnight saw the headline claim: 0 to 60 mph (about 97 km/h) in one second, helped by thrusters developed with Musk's rocket company SpaceX.

TechCrunch, which covered the event, reported that the car used high-powered fans and thrusters to drive up an inverted ramp, spin around and lower itself back on to the road. It also lifted itself over a line of Tesla vehicles while moving: a Cybercab, a Cybertruck, a Tesla Semi, a Model Y and a Model 3.

What Tesla did and did not say

Tesla gave no top speed, range or price for the production car, and no date for deliveries. That matters, because the Roadster has been sold on reservations for years:

• Standard reservation: a deposit of $50,000, about Rs 13.8 million at today's interbank rate of Rs 276.92 to the dollar.
• Founders Series: 1,000 cars with a $250,000 payment up front, about Rs 69.2 million.

You can run the conversion yourself with our currency converter or follow the rupee on the dollar rate page.

Musk called the car the "best of the last of the human-driven cars" and said it was better than "any James Bond car", crediting Tesla and SpaceX engineers working together. He was frank about the business case: he said he was "not sure it moves the needle massively from a revenue standpoint". On safety he said Tesla would "aspire not to kill anyone in this car", repeating a line from earlier this year that safety is not the car's main goal.

Nine years of delays

• 2017: the second-generation Roadster appears as a surprise at the end of the Tesla Semi launch, with deliveries promised "in just a few years".
• 2018: Musk tweets about a "SpaceX option package" with about ten small rocket thrusters that "may even allow a Tesla to fly".
• 2020 to 2024: the car is delayed in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 as Tesla puts the Model 3, Model Y and Cybertruck first.
• Late 2025: Musk says he wants a reveal by the end of the year, then moves it to 1 April 2026, joking that the date gives him "some deniability".
• 1 October 2026: a planned event is called off because of severe weather, leading to Thursday's reveal.

Will it come to Pakistan?

Tesla has no official sales or service network in Pakistan, so any Roadster that arrives would come as a private import, paying customs duty, regulatory duty and registration tax on top of the price. For a sense of what that adds to an imported car, see our car registration tax calculator. Electric cars are already arriving here in larger numbers from Chinese makers at a fraction of the cost.

The real test now is whether Tesla puts a price and a delivery date on the car. Until it does, the Roadster remains the most famous car most reservation holders have still not received.