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Musk teases Tesla Roadster demo this year, been hyping it since 2017
Toyota Motor Corp President Akio Toyoda gets out of a Tesla Motor’s Roadster electric car with Tesla Motors Chief Exective Officer Elon Musk (behind car) upon their arrival at a news conference in Tokyo November 12, 2010.
Issei Kato | Reuters
Eight years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promoted a next-generation Roadster, basing the name of the sports car on the company’s debut electric vehicle from 2008.
The updated version has yet to hit production. But Musk is again promising that a new one is on the way.
In a discussion with podcaster Joe Rogan that was published on Friday, Musk was asked about the long-delayed vehicle. He provided a sense of timing but declined to share updated technical or design details.
“I can’t do the unveil before the unveil,” Musk said. As he’s said before, Musk claimed the new Roadster “has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever.”
Tesla is aiming to show off the updated Roadster to fans and investors “hopefully before the end of the year,” Musk said.
Musk’s comments come a day after former close friend Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, posted on X that he tried to cancel his Roadster reservation from 2018 and get his deposit refunded. He shared a screenshot showing that his email to the company had bounced back.
“I really was excited for the car!” Altman wrote. “And I understand delays. But 7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait.”
Musk, who helped start OpenAI in 2015, is in a heated legal dispute with Altman and now runs competing artificial intelligence startup xAI.
Patrick George, editor-in-chief at InsideEVs and a long-time industry observer, told CNBC on Friday that the Roadster “has been MIA for years.”
“The only thing I can think of that would make Musk start talking about this again is that Sam Altman at OpenAI, who is sort of his arch-rival, just said recently that he was trying to cancel his Roadster reservation which he has held since 2018,” George said.
Earlier this year, the popular gadget and autos reviewer Marques Brownlee discussed the arduous process of cancelling his own Roadster reservation in an interview with Waveform Podcast.
The Roadster is a high end, low-volume model, something meant to challenge vehicles like BYD’s YangWang U9 Xtreme, which was recently crowned the world’s fastest production car.
Musk faces a major Tesla shareholder vote next week, as he and the board are asking investors to approve a massive pay package.
The pay plan would net Musk nearly $1 trillion in Tesla stock and would grow his stake to around 25%, depending on the company hitting various market valuations and other growth milestones.
WATCH: CNBC’s interview with Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm
