Tesla Roadster Release Date: Every Delay From 2017 to 2028

When is the Tesla Roadster coming out? For nearly nine years, the honest answer has been "later than Elon Musk said." The Tesla Roadster release date was first set for 2020, then slipped to 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, before Tesla finally held a demonstration event on October 15, 2026 – and Musk said production would start in 2028. This part of our Tesla Roadster guide lays out every public promise, with the date it was made and who reported it, so you can judge the latest timeline for yourself.

The short answer: when is the Tesla Roadster coming out?

As of October 16, 2026, Tesla's own statement is that production of the new Roadster will begin in 2028. Musk said "2028, actually" at the unveiling event, according to Electrek and Investing.com. Tesla has opened reservations in the United States but has not announced a price or a delivery date for customers. Where the car will be built has also not been confirmed at the event; Teslarati reported that Gigafactory Texas is planned, and Tesla said back in 2022 that the Roadster would be made there.

The full Tesla Roadster delay timeline, 2017–2026

The table below lists every public timing statement we could verify. The middle column shows what was promised at the time; the last column shows where it was reported.

Date	What Musk or Tesla said	Promised timing	Reported by
Nov 16, 2017	Roadster revealed at the Tesla Semi event	Production in 2020	Car and Driver
Jul 22, 2020	Q2 earnings call: production in 12–18 months, in California	Mid-to-late 2021	Electrek
Jan 29, 2021	Musk on X: production in 2022, candidate design by end of summer	2022	The Verge
Sept–Oct 2021	Musk: 2023, citing chip shortages; repeated at shareholder meeting	2023	MotorTrend
Apr 7, 2022	“Cyber Rodeo”: Roadster to be built at Gigafactory Texas	—	Teslarati
May 16–17, 2023	Shareholder meeting: engineering done this year, production “hopefully” next	2024	Teslarati
Feb 28, 2024	Musk on X: goals “radically increased,” demo by year-end	Demo end of 2024; production 2025	Musk on X, Bloomberg
Mar 18, 2024	Musk interview: no big wings, steer-by-wire yoke	—	Teslarati
Jul 2024	Tesla: production in 2025	2025	Electrek
Oct 2024	Q3 call: design almost final	2025	Top Gear
Aug 6, 2025	Tesla patent on ground-effect downforce published	—	Electrek
Oct 19, 2025	Design chief Franz von Holzhausen: unveil still on for 2025	2025	Tesla North
Oct 31, 2025	Joe Rogan podcast: demo by end of year, “most memorable product unveil ever”	Demo end of 2025	Electrek
Nov 6, 2025	Shareholder meeting: demo April 1, production 12–18 months later	Demo Apr 1, 2026; production 2027–28	Electrek
Mar 17, 2026	Musk on X: unveil “hopefully next month”	Late April 2026	Not a Tesla App
Apr 1, 2026	Date passes with no event	—	CarScoops
Apr 22, 2026	Q1 call: demo delayed about a month for testing and validation	May–June 2026	Electrek
Jun 5, 2026	Sources: demo pushed to at least August	August 2026	CarScoops (citing The Information)
Sept 12, 2026	Tesla on X: “Go for launch” with the date 10.01; reservations reopen	Oct 1, 2026	Reuters, MotorTrend
Sept 28, 2026	Event moved to Oct 15 because of a storm forecast	Oct 15, 2026	TechCrunch, Electrek
Oct 15, 2026	Roadster unveiled in three versions	Production 2028	Reuters, TechCrunch, Electrek

Production target by year: how the date moved

Strip out the noise and the pattern is simple. The promised start of production has changed eight times since 2017: 2020 → 2021 → 2022 → 2023 → 2024 → 2025 → 2027/28 → 2028. In most years the target moved by about twelve months, usually around an earnings call, a shareholder meeting or a post on X.

When the promise was made	Promised production start	Delay vs. original 2020 target
November 2017	2020	—
July 2020	2021	+1 year
January 2021	2022	+2 years
Fall 2021	2023	+3 years
May 2023	2024	+4 years
February/July 2024	2025	+5 years
November 2025	2027–2028	+7–8 years
October 2026	2028	+8 years

Why the Roadster kept getting delayed

Tesla rarely gave a single reason, but the public statements point to four factors.

• Other products came first. Between 2017 and 2026, Tesla ramped the Model 3, launched the Model Y, built the Cybertruck and started Semi production. Each of those programs needed engineering time, factory space and capital, and the low-volume Roadster was never the product that would pay for them. Even at the 2026 event he said he was "not sure it moves the needle massively from a revenue standpoint," as TechCrunch reported.
• Supply chain shocks. In 2021 Musk tied the delay to 2023 directly to the global chip shortage, according to MotorTrend.
• A redesign with SpaceX. In February 2024 Musk said the design goals had been "radically increased." That led to the thruster-equipped versions and, according to CarScoops citing The Information, early SpaceX–Tesla thruster demos in spring 2026.
• Testing and safety. On the April 2026 earnings call, Tesla said the demo needed a lot more testing and validation. In September 2026, the event moved again because the demonstrations could only be done outdoors and a storm was forecast.

2026: the year of near misses

The final stretch before the reveal was a story in itself. After the November 2025 shareholder meeting, Musk set April 1, 2026, as the demo date. In March he wrote that the unveil would "hopefully" happen the next month and that it would be "a banger." April 1 came and went without an event, as CarScoops later noted. On the April 22 earnings call, Tesla said the demo would slip by about a month. On June 5, CarScoops, citing The Information, reported that the event had been pushed to at least August.

Then, on September 12, Tesla's official X account posted "Go for launch" with the date 10.01, Musk confirmed an October 1 unveil, a countdown appeared on tesla.com and reservations reopened, according to Reuters and MotorTrend. On September 28, Tesla moved the event to October 15, citing a forecast of heavy rain and thunderstorms; TechCrunch and Electrek reported that the demonstrations could only be done outside and that invited guests had been warned about a possible postponement. The event finally happened on the evening of October 15 at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, near Waco, Texas.

What happened at the October 15, 2026 event

Tesla showed three versions – Performance, Thrust and Rocket – and remote-controlled demo cars jumped a curved ramp, flipped in the air and used thrusters to land on four wheels. They also hopped over parked Tesla vehicles including a Cybercab and a Semi. Tesla quoted 0–60 mph times under 1.6, 0.9 and 0.59 seconds for the three versions, a top speed over 230 mph (370 km/h) and range over 300 miles (483 km). No price was announced. We cover the hardware in detail in 2026 Tesla Roadster specs, versions and thrusters and what you pay to get in line in Tesla Roadster price and reservation.

Musk himself was cautious before the demonstration, saying success was not guaranteed, according to Jalopnik and TechCrunch. After it, Tesla shares rose more than 3 percent in after-hours trading, Investing.com reported.

How much should you trust the 2028 date?

There are reasons for both optimism and caution. On the positive side, 2026 was the first year Tesla actually showed working hardware in public instead of a static prototype, opened a live reservation page and named a production year at a formal event. On the negative side, Tesla has missed every previous Roadster production target, the demo cars were remotely operated rather than driven by people, and key specs such as battery capacity, weight and EPA range have not been disclosed. Jalopnik questioned whether the demo vehicles were close to production specification.

A sensible way to read the timeline: treat 2028 as Tesla's current target, expect the Performance version – the one Tesla calls "road ready" – to be the most likely to arrive first, and treat the Rocket version, which Tesla says is invite-only and not approved for public road use, as the least predictable. That is our reading, not a Tesla statement.

The quotes that defined the wait

Musk's own words are the best record of how expectations rose and fell. All of the quotes below were reported by the outlets named; we have not used any quote we could not trace to a published source.

When	Quote	Reported by
March 2026	“New Roadster unveil hopefully next month. It will be a banger next-level.”	Not a Tesla App
October 2025	The unveil “has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever”	Electrek
November 2025	“That demo event will be April 1 of next year”; production “probably about 12–18 months after that”	Electrek
April 2026	Long term, “the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster”	Earnings call, via Electrek
October 15, 2026	“2028, actually” – on the production start	Electrek, Investing.com
October 15, 2026	The Roadster as “the best of the last of the human-driven cars”	TechCrunch

Read together, the quotes show a shift in how Tesla frames the car. In 2017 it was a halo product meant to prove electric cars could beat gasoline supercars. By 2026 Musk described it as a celebration of human driving in a future he expects to be dominated by autonomous vehicles – a niche product rather than a volume driver.

What to watch next

If you are tracking the Roadster as a fan, an investor or a reservation holder, these are the milestones that will tell you whether 2028 is realistic:

• A price announcement. Tesla has not priced any version. A firm price usually comes before final orders.
• Disclosed specs. Battery capacity, curb weight and an EPA range rating are still missing. An EPA rating would mean the car has gone through federal range testing.
• Certification signals. In the United States, manufacturers certify that their vehicles meet federal safety standards themselves; NHTSA does not pre-approve cars. Our specs and street legality article explains what that means for a car with thrusters.
• Clarity for 2017 reservation holders. Tesla has not said how old reservations and Founders Series orders will be handled.
• A production location. Gigafactory Texas is the stated plan, but the October 2026 event did not confirm it.

Until those arrive, the safest assumption is the one history supports: Tesla's dates are targets, not commitments. For the full story from the original 2008 Roadster to 2028, and a side-by-side look at what Tesla promised in 2017, return to the Tesla Roadster hub.