Musk Says The Roadster Will Be Tesla’s Last Manually Driven Car, A Fitting Title For A Car Nobody Has Driven

The second-gen Roadster will become Tesla’s only driver-focused car.
This puts it in an odd place in the company’s autonomy-first strategy.
But internal docs still list it as “Design Development” with no factory planned.

Right now, there are three main threads surrounding Tesla’s long-promised second-generation Roadster. First, what it’s supposed to be, second, where it fits, and finally, if it’s actually any closer to existing. A new update from Elon Musk gives us clarity on the first, attempts to address the second, and then raises even more questions on the third.

During the company’s latest earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said about the Roadster: “It’s going to make sense for our whole lineup to be different autonomous vehicles of different sizes. In fact, long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster.”

More: Tesla Sold 6% More Cars Last Quarter And Made 16% More Money

Tesla’s focus over the years has shifted from cars that leveraged performance in multiple categories to succeed to one almost entirely betting on autonomy. Musk’s comments don’t walk back that idea, they double down on it.

But Tesla is carving out a very specific lane for the Roadster, a halo car for people who still want to drive, even as the rest of the company’s products move away from them.

Musk Says The Roadster Will Be Tesla’s Last Manually Driven Car, A Fitting Title For A Car Nobody Has Driven — This was almost a decade ago…

But the main issues with the Roadster remain. First shown in 2017, the model became almost a meme for missing multiple promised timelines, including a demo run on April 1st this year. Now, in new shareholder documents, Tesla lists the Roadster’s production facility as “TBD” and its status as “Design Development.” This means that the car is still years away from actually reaching production. Tesla’s original promise was to launch the Roadster in 2020.

In theory, it’s hard to root against Tesla’s aspirational goal of building the “last best driver’s car.” We all want to see the limits of performance and power pushed to the bleeding edge. But at this stage, the Roadster feels more like a fairytale than anything else.

“It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo, but I think it will be one of the most exciting product unveils ever,” Musk said. Yeah… it better be.