Elon Musk shocks with new Tesla Roadster
Sabotage!
Elon Musk crashed his own party at Tesla's Semi event with a surprise staged to the Beastie Boys banger: Tesla's making a brand-new Roadster.
Arriving in 2020, and, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, designed to “give a hardcore smack-down to gasoline cars,” the new all-electric Roadster will have world-record-beating specs.
It was Musk's first "one more thing moment," former Apple CEO Steve Jobs' famous mantra that made Apple's hardware reveal events such electrifying events.
Jobs would likely drool for the opportunity to show off the new roadster, though, given the insane specs Musk trotted out to the stupefied crowd in Hawthorne, California.
The introduction of the redesigned Roadster, the first update since its launch 7 years go, came as a complete surprise during Tesla’s launch of its first Semi truck at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport on Thursday night. The gleaming red car literally rolled out of the back of one of the Tesla Semi Truck’s cargo bays. It then proceeded to race up and down the runway at insane or what Musk is now calling, “Plaid” speeds.
Musk set the tone with his first statement: The new Roadster will be the "fastest production car ever made. Period."
The car will hit 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds. If true, that's the first time any car has broken the under-two-second barrier.
It'll take just 4.2 seconds to reach 100 mph. That's another record, if true.
The quarter mile time is 8.9 seconds. That'd be the first time any production car breaks nine seconds in that department.
"This is what we're achieving in the prototype," said Musk, hinting that even more barriers could fall.
The Roadster will have a top speed of over 250 mph, but Musk wasn't ready to share specifics.
The motor will be powered by a battery pack that's over 200 kWh, which will allow an absolutely insane 620 mile range. This would be the first time a production EV would be capable of traveling more than 1,000 km at highway speed.
After driving this, “driving a gas car is going to feel like a steam engine with a side oif quiche,” joked Musk.
Other tidbits include three motors, 10,000 nm torque and a removable roof.
To illustrate the massive range, Musk pointed out that Roadster drivers could manage a trip from LA to San Francisco, then back to LA — all without recharging.
The car will offer all-wheel drive, and it's a four-seater.
This is no conventional luxury car. It has a base price of $200,000 -- more than $100,000 over the base price of the Tesla Model S. The "Founder" series will be a run of 1,000 vehicles that cost $250,000 or more. To reserve a "regular" model, it'll cost you a $50,000 deposit, and reservations are open now.
Want the Founder model? That'll cost you the full $250,000 up front. Silicon Valley millionaires better start lining up now. And they probably will, even though there are as yet no details on exactly what perks that model will have.
Tesla plans to deliver the new Roadster in 2020, but where they plan on building the car and how much it will cost are discussions for another day.
No matter how you slice it, it was a stunning debut, a true surprise pulled off by the tech industry's new reigning showman.
Brett Williams is a Tech Reporter at Mashable. He writes about tech news, trends and other tangentially related topics with a particular interest in wearables and exercise tech. Prior to Mashable, he wrote for Inked Magazine and Thrillist. Brett's work has also appeared on Fusion and AskMen, to name a few. You can follow Brett on Twitter @bdwilliams910.
