Tesla unveils long-delayed Roadster, showing off its flying-car ambitions

Tesla showed off its long-delayed next-generation Roadster on Thursday, almost a decade after Elon Musk's company started taking deposits for the electric sports car.

The event was livestreamed from a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco, starting at 7:55 p.m. local time, or 8:55 p.m. ET. In attendance along with Musk were design leader Franz von Holzhausen and Lars Moravy, vice president of vehicle engineering.

"You're going to see some crazy stuff tonight," Musk said. "You're going to see the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world's best car company and the world's best rocket company."

Tesla's original Roadster, designed and engineered by a team led by founding CEO Martin Eberhard, was based on a Lotus Elise chassis and was first delivered in 2008, selling for roughly $100,000 in small volumes until 2012.

The next-generation Roadster is expected to be a high-end, low-volume model that relies on SpaceX technology to enable it to hover. While Musk fanatics expressed their excitement on social media, the Roadster isn't likely to have any material financial impact on the company.

At the event, Musk and his team showcased a white sports car that raced up a curved ramp, then clung to it upside down and vaulted off it, flipping in mid-air and hovering slowly before landing on the ground.

The two-seater can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under a second, according to Tesla's timer, a feat Moravy demonstrated for the live audience.

Musk said the next-generation Roadster would enter production in 2028. The price wasn't announced, and the company didn't disclose specifications about other performance-level variants of the new Roadster.

Tesla reopened reservations for the refreshed Roadster in recent weeks, accepting $50,000 deposits from prospective buyers in the U.S., Canada and China.

Musk first promoted the refreshed Roadster concept at an event in November 2017, and the following June in a series of tweets. He wrote at that time, "SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car." The engines would improve speed and braking, and may "even allow a Tesla to fly."

The prototype Tesla showed on Thursday is built to be as lightweight as possible with a steer-by-wire system, steering yoke, and an array of technologies developed by SpaceX, including thrusters, carbon overlay pressure vessels and diffusers, and powerful fans that enable the car to do some gymnastics.

One feature Tesla left out of its forthcoming Roadster is the company's "FSD" or automated driving system. Musk said the new Roadster will be the last vehicle the company produces that's intended to be controlled by a human driver.

Tesla started taking $50,000 deposits for the revamped Roadster in 2017, but has since missed every targeted delivery date. As recently as last October, Musk was hyping a Roadster demo that he hoped would happen before the end of 2025. That didn't take place either.

Musk's former friend and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman mocked the Tesla CEO in posts on X last year over the extreme delays, showing screenshots of his reservation and refund requests.

"I really was excited for the car! And I understand delays," Altman wrote. "But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait."

Altman got his refund, and the two ended up in court earlier this year over a separate matter related to OpenAI's governance and ownership structure.

Others have kept their reservations.

Lawrence O'Connor, founder and CEO of Other World Computing in Austin, Texas, told CNBC ahead of the event that he reserved a Founder's Edition of the new Roadster in November 2017, effectively giving the company what he called an "interest-free loan" of $250,000.

O'Connor wrote in a message that he would be attending the show and was "excited to see what has been 9 years in the making." After the event, O'Connor said what he saw was "off the charts."

Tesla is scheduled to report third-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday.