Remember the Tesla Roadster that started it all by selling nearly 2,500 units during its brief four-year life? Hold on to your seats, as another zero emissions sports car might be coming really soon!
Musk originally leaked the news in a conference call last year when he announced that the next-generation Roadster would be launched in 2019, and his reply of “ the new version is some years away, but yes” on the same inquiry from a twitter follower rubber stamped the arrival.
Tesla’s last Roadster was a two-seater, open top speedster with a Lotus Elise chassis. It was the first-ever lithium ion battery electric car that traveled more than 200 miles on a single charge.
After discontinuing the speedster, Tesla came up with the highly popular Model S and Model X and is now about to release the much-anticipated Model 3, which will be company’s first affordable EV.
While it might seem all hunky dory for Musk, he did admit during a shareholder meeting that the Roadster’s journey was anything but smooth. Musk revealed that on its first test drive he took Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin along with him, the Roadster only managed to reach 10 mph, “was completely unsafe,” it “broke down all the time,” and it “didn’t really work.”
All the Tesla enthusiasts are now eagerly waiting for further details on the second-generation Roadster, and already there have been some speculations that its name could change from Roadster to Model R to be more in sync with the automaker’s other models.