Tesla Roadster reveal live: Updates from the launch of the next-gen sportscar

Hello everyone and welcome to our liveblog of today's Tesla Roadster reveal event. Despite all the stops and starts over the years, it seems like the company actually might go ahead and unveil its second-gen sportscar today. That is, if Elon Musk's frenzied posting on X is anything to go by.

I see there are already a lot of you in our comments section, and 40 of you have left messages. One of you only said "test" — is that a sign of things to come tonight? I will say that one of my favorite comments so far is by "songbirdsnake," who said "We're getting a flying car before GTA 6!" followed closely by "chase" with a GIF of a skeleton.

Karissa just discovered and confirmed that the Roadster easter egg described in this tweet actually works:

Tesla just updated the Roadster Easter Egg on the website.

When you flip the Roadster upside down, and adjust the photo settings, it now says:

" ⬆️ THIS SIDE UP ⬆️ " pic.twitter.com/Jx289YdZ6y

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) October 15, 2026

It looks like we have a mix of Tesla (or Musk) fans as well as cynics and skeptics (or realists?) in our comments section, which feels like a solid representation of the internet at large. I was expecting plenty of EV enthusiasts here, but I appreciate when people share their real, lived experiences of buying cars in this economy. 

As a Singaporean, my understanding of car prices is completely skewed, but even I find it wild that there are people who paid $50,000 as deposits for this vehicle back in 2017. If any of you here did that, please let us know below whether you canceled your order or held on!

Commenter by the name "Gizmo-No!" (very funny name lol) said "Vaporware until I see one on the street." along with some other great observations that I'm not sure I can repeat verbatim? Anyway, I just wanted to say I appreciate the username.

Oh I saw this comment earlier today and honestly it's probably my favorite comment of the day. "I hope they used stronger glue on this car than they did on the Cyberdumpster." by "8647" I hope that's your PIN code for something!

In case you all haven't been on X (I wouldn't blame you), here's something Musk posted this morning:

New Roadster is
beyond movies,
beyond imagination,
beyond human,
yet still made
by humans
on Earth

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026

Ooh I'm intrigued by the very intelligent guesses made by commenter "Frank Durocher," who says

"My predictions in order of craziest to most mundane...

Sensationalized prediction: they drop this out of a plane and it lands on stage like Starship.

More fun, but reasonable prediction: The rumors about downforce creation (and their teaser images being upside down) play into the car having so much downforce that they drive it to the stage upside-down, stuck to the ceiling.

Boring prediction: The thrusters help it accelerate faster and cost so much money that they're not available to the general public.

And why 7:55pm CST? Maybe it has 755hp."

There's about 3 hours and 40 minutes to go before the livestream is scheduled to begin. That's plenty of time to get dinner (or whatever meal makes sense for you), a nap and maybe even a walk. If you would prefer to watch the livestream for yourself, you can do so on X. If you don't want to for any reason, we'll be here for you!

Here's a picture the Tesla account posted to X today.

I see we have a live one! Commenter "Sagey" says Tesla has had their deposit for four years! You have an abundance of faith, tenacity and, I'm assuming, money? I would be curious how you feel by the end of the night! Elated, disappointed or relieved? 

While we're on a liveblog about Tesla, there's been speculation that the company might merge with SpaceX. Analysts at Barclays wrote a note that indicated they believed an announcement about the deal could be made as soon as later this month. 

Hello! I do think it's likely a matter of "when" not "if" we will see the ultimate consolidation with SpaceXAI (or is it SpaceXSI?) and Tesla. It would certainly cement Musk's control over all his companies. I appreciate this line from that Barclays memo: "The true value would be in vertical integration." Isn't it always? (I am going to show my age here, but there is a very funny 30 Rock bit about vertical integration I always think of when I see the phrase.) 

Really enjoying some of these reader predictions. I'm personally wondering if that teaser isn't pointing at a recreation of the classic Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG ad where it briefly drives upside-down through a tunnel:

How's this for a throwback, here's the teaser trailer for the Roadster that Tesla released 8 years ago.

Doing everything I can to not post an "It's been 84 years" GIF.

I mean, you're not wrong. It's been ... almost a decade? I think we all expect some delays now when it comes to Tesla, but the Roadster is on a whole other level. Real question: what will we have to see for it to live up to expectations after such a long wait? (Other than potential inverted driving abilities.)

Will it fly?

We do know it's going to be loud, whatever we see. Sawyer Merritt, who is attending the event IRL, just shared a photo of his wristband... and a fresh pair of earplugs.

This is going to be a wild night. pic.twitter.com/KmWf4VZpk2

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 15, 2026

And in case you're wondering, we have further confirmation that earplugs are, in fact, being handed out to attendees. 

I'm all checked in for the Roadster event! These are the two things they gave me.

What does it Mean? pic.twitter.com/GxdijSaaQZ

— WHAT'S INSIDE? (@whatsinside) October 15, 2026

From a spectacle standpoint, it's exciting to a see a crazy demo of hypercar with cold-gas thrusters that needs earplugs to be around. From a middle-aged human with limited disposable income standpoint, I really do wish Tesla would join the companies pushing new EVs down towards to the sub-$25,000 price point that more families could afford. It's like they got the Model 3 down to $35,000 and just stopped trying. (And no, the Cybercab doesn't count.)

I just have to wonder how the event logistics played out for people who were invited. Last month, the date was set for October 1, and is now happening on October 15. I wonder how many hotels and flights had to be rescheduled.

Here's your reminder that this event was most recently supposed to happen two weeks ago and then got delayed again.

Go for launch pic.twitter.com/Khu03eiZ04

— Tesla (@Tesla) September 12, 2026

What do we think took (or will take) longer — Theseus' return home in The Odyssey or the journey of the Tesla Roadster from tease to launch?

Meanwhile, I've been revisiting Engadget's coverage of the original reveal from 2017. Back then, Tesla was promising a 620-mile range with a 200kWh battery for a starting price of $250,000. That price certainly seems a lot less likely by 2026 standards, no?  

I think objectively the Roadster has taken longer than the journey home already. Musk started teasing it in 2014-2015! If we're being kinder by going from the surprise reveal at the end of the Tesla Semi event, the Roadster needs to arrive within a year.

I kind of want to recap the journey here so far. After those teases in 2014-2015, the Roadster was unveiled at the Tesla Semi event in 2017, with the company taking $50,000 deposits and saying the vehicle would be ready in 2020.

I'm not sure if more was publicly discussed until 2021, when Musk responded to a tweet asking about the Roadster to say it would start production "next year"  (as in, 2022).

 Over on X, we're starting to get a better look at what things look like on the ground. Here's a video from Barbara Merritt.

Just a little preview of tonight's @tesla roadster event! 🥳🚀🚗 pic.twitter.com/OUrmNSGrz9

— Barbara Merritt (@barbaramerritt) October 15, 2026

I had totally forgotten about the 200kWh battery! That's the kind of battery option you'd usually see in giant EVs like the Silverado. Assuming Tesla hasn't changed things up, that's going to be one heavy supercar — probably over a ton on the batteries alone. 

Oh I think they sent a Roadster into space with a Falcon Heavy launch? And telescopes were tracking it for awhile, until some point in February 2018.

There is indeed a Roadster in space, but it's a 2010 model, one that was supposedly Elon Musk's personal vehicle for a time.

Some more clues from folks on the ground. Apparently there's a "massive ramp" at the event. It certainly looks ready for a massive spectacle. Anyone want to speculate about how this will be used? A Roadster racing all the way up? That would actually not be that far off from the Mercedes ad Aaron mentioned earlier. 

This is wild pic.twitter.com/gfJtfVJk4E

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 15, 2026

And check out this lightning bolt-shaped bottle of Mezcal for the themed drinks they're apparently serving. 

Bro... they're serving Tesla tequila drinks called Space Cowboy at the Tesla Roadster event. It's about to be lit! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/mzRpfd5ptL

— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) October 15, 2026

Coincidentally (or not), the Wall Street Journal just reported that Tesla's vice president of energy and charging has stepped down and is leaving the company.

The obvious question that tequila tweet raises: Why isn't Optimus serving those drinks? I thought it was totally ready and flying off the factory lines.

Any guesses about what we might see under these covers? There's an interesting variety of shapes here, and not all of them are obviously car-like.

What's under these covers? Especially the last one... pic.twitter.com/9y7pJQJ8Od

— Rob Maurer (@robmaurer) October 15, 2026

Guys our long wait is almost over. I wanted to make a joke at 7:46PM that we had just 69 minutes left to wait but then I forgot and missed the opportunity so I guess I'll just say we're about 20 minutes away from the promised start time.

I hope there's a more fun answer to "what's under the covers" but I feel like we're most likely looking at a series of cutaways showing off various parts of the Roadster and maybe Cybercab? Those sort of disembodied drivetrain displays are a dime a dozen at car events.

We still have almost 15 minutes to go, but looks like things are picking up over in Texas, where the spectacle is already beginning for attendees. 

They just told us there would be loud noises from the raptor engine so put on your earplugs... woah pic.twitter.com/ixWSNg0xEU

— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) October 16, 2026

I'm just excited about the ramp. I think they're going to try and launch this thing into the air? I spent the last couple of weekends watching mountain bike competitions like UCI Downhill and Red Bull Rampage so whenever I see a ramp I just get excited for some tricks. 

I think they're definitely going to attempt some kind of Roadster flying over multiple lined up vehicles trick based on this:

🇺🇸 The @Tesla Roadster reveal will be UNIMAGINABLE!

NO LITERALLY! I'm having a hard time imagining what's going to happen to whatever makes it to the end of that curve!

Writer: Jamie pic.twitter.com/il2WLQEf9o

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 16, 2026

The pre-event livestream on YouTube right now is oddly enjoyable. I like the VHS-era old-school TV vibes.

The event has begun, just five minutes behind! 

Opening with some nostalgia for the original Roadster. Sidenote: it's kind of refreshing that this is very obviously un-scripted, at least so far. I've been to a lot of events lately and they have all been scripted within an inch of their life.

I'm probably going to get the spelling of their names wrong but two people have stepped out onstage thanking everyone who's there with them at a SpaceX facility in Texas. And added they hoped we enjoyed the pre-show vibes (I did). "We're 20 years from when Elon first introduced the Roadster to the world."

Elon Musk stepped out and immediately said "You're gonna see some crazy stuff tonight. We need an audience to prove that it's not AI or SI."

Elon is onstage, he says they needed an IRL audience so people would believe it wasn't AI or SI (superintelligence).

"It will probably work," Elon says. If not, "we're at a safe distance." Okay then! Still no details on what the actual demo will be.

Musk says that "eventually" the Roadster will be the *only* manually driven car that Tesla makes. Interesting given the price point! 

The logo on the bottom right of the livestream, combined with the color scheme of the stage is reminding me of some kind of wrestling arena. A video has just started playing, showing the Roadster.

Wow, the Roadster just went up that ramp we saw earlier at a surprisingly slow speed, stayed inverted for a few seconds and then came back down.

And it just went up the ramp again, did a little mid-air twist and then landed smoothly on the ground. "That's not the last thing you'll see, by the way," Musk says.

My jaw first dropped when it stopped in the middle of the ramp where it was perpendicular to the ground. Then when it spun off the top when it was upside down and the jets shot out to help it slow down and manage its descent onto the ground like a space vehicle would... Yea.

It has a suction system to keep it attached to the ramp upside down. "This car really sucks."

I can understand why Musk said a real-world audience was necessary to verify this was real.

Musk points out that hovering upside down is not a thing that most people need their vehicle to do, but the technology that makes that possible also makes for some incredible cornering abilities. 

In the driver's seat. of course, is an Optimus robot. 

"This is not necessarily a safety-optimized car," Musk says. Shocking. 

I believe they intimated that Optimus is just there for show — the car has been programmed to do these stunts

Yep, that certainly didn't look "safe." The Roadster just jumped over a line of other Teslas, did a flip, and landed again. 

Musk says you don't need "special propellant," it has a rechargeable air tank so people can "do these maneuvers" themselves. Ok. That definitely doesn't make me feel safe.

We're getting a closer look at the actual car. It'a two-seater, with a steer-by-wire system. The thrusters and fans are in the rear of the car. 

The rear wing can automatically adjust based on your conditions, Musk says.

We're now seeing the Roadster's supposed 0 – 60mph abilities. (It's 1 second, or maybe less than 1 second? It seems no one was actually timing that last demo.)

Apparently it was .81 seconds. "We anticipate being able to do better than that," Musk says. 

It was just clocked as at 0.81 seconds, after a song and dance about needing to break the 1 second mark.

Worth pointing out that using giant thrusters is cheating a little bit — a top drag car can easily do less than that.

Musk and crew are not quite answering questions about top speed, shrugging off the car's actual drivability. But he is teeing up another demo.

Someone in the crowd yells for the "top speed." After a tangent about Evil Kinevil, they says it's at least 235mph, but Musk says it can actually go "much faster than that."

Production in 2028 "for real."

"The vertical acceleration is going to rip people's heads off!" My partner, who has to watch this with me, is shrieking.

On another note, a "flying" Tesla seems like exactly the kind of "vertical integration" that makes investors so excited about the prospect of Tesla and SpaceXAI merging hm.

Said partner is extremely underwhelmed by the presenters, and he feels they were all very unrehearsed. I, on the other hand, found it refreshing? 

To quote an ancient proverb: That's not flying, that's falling with style.

Well, that was certainly an interesting, if quick demo. Clearly the legality of such a vehicle on roads is grey at best, and I can't imagine it would be safe to be in the Roadster when it randomly jets upwards and flips around. But I have to admit that was quite the demonstration.

My partner is still muttering under his breath to himself, "the compression is pretty nuts as well. Did they say how long the compression takes between stunts?"

So how likely do we think it is we'll actually see this "flying" Tesla on the road in 2028? I can already think of a number of issues, most of them safety-related. Hard to imagine regulators would let normies (even filthy rich ones) drive something like this on public roads? That reminds me of something else, we got absolutely no info on price.

What's the verdict, everyone. Would you call this a flying car? I know where Aaron stands, based on that "ancient proverb" he quoted.

I have a good answer for that!

Per the Tesla website, which was updated as the show ended, there will be three versions of the Roadster. "Performance" has the "multi-mode suction system" for downforce but no thrusters. "Thrust" puts cold-gas thrusters at the rear of the vehicle for more rapid acceleration, while "Rocket" puts thrusters all around the perimeter that "support forward and upward acceleration as well as lateral rotational movement." It's a safe bet that the latter model is the one that was doing barrel rolls over a Semi during the demo.

We don't know much about the price but I can tell you that those infamous $50,000 reservations are for the Performance model. You can reserve the Thrust model today for a downpayment of $250,000, and the Rocket model is by invite only.

That's the downpayment! So the price of this would, what, well over $1 million?

I was just doing the math to get to $1 million myself. 

Thinking back to the minutes and hour before that demo, I think it was quite important that we saw people post pictures of that ramp. 

Yeah, I'm not sure what I was expecting but that Roadster got a lot more airtime than I would have predicted. Still, this all kind of feels like an elaborate magic trick. I don't know if it's my own cynicism after covering Elon for so long, but I wouldn't expect today's stunts to necessarily be representative of the capabilities of the vehicle people are able to actually buy. 

Karissa when you said airtime it took me a second to realize what you meant. I was thinking more "broadcast time" or "time in the spotlight" and you meant literally time in the air. Which it did spend a lot of time doing. I also enjoyed every time it flipped in mid-air but I think my favorite was still watching it climb that ramp with such actual control against gravity.

I have to say, when there were rumors that the Roadster would be Cybertruckified I was definitely expecting a lot worse than the redesign we got. It's definitely a bit camp and '80s but still looks every bit a sports car. I'm still not sure I prefer it to the 2017 reveal (on the left above), but hey what do I know.

Quite the glow-up, huh? Then again, they did have almost a decade.

Tesla says the design was inspired by two aircraft: the SR-71 and the F-35. 

Our design language has evolved since the last reveal: from S3XY to Cybertruck, Cybercab & Optimus

Roadster is inspired by the SR-71 & F-35 pic.twitter.com/CV7trDTS66

— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026

I came to be entertained, and I leave, indeed, entertained. I'm just getting a bit of deja vu and am not sure if the promise of 2028 is going to be fulfilled.

As long as we're talking about what people can actually expect, here's another shot of the interior shared by Tesla. I think you might feel like you're in a rocketship, even if you don't have all the "flight" abilities.

I'm also still thinking about Musk's comment that the Roadster will be the last "manually driven" car Tesla makes. The implication being that the company will eventually only make self-driving cars and the $$$ Roadster will be for rich folks who still want to drive for the novelty factor, I guess. 

I was reminded of an event I covered with Elon more than a decade ago and he speculated that one day human-operated cars might be illegal because autonomous vehicles would be so much safer. I remember that comment caused a bit of an uproar at the time (2015) but now that kind of comment from Musk barely raises an eyebrow. 

I for one would be much happier if Musk went back to just making marginally spurious predictions about future technology, and maybe stopped sharing his opinions on everything else.

On that note, we're going to call it a night here — thanks for joining us for what turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining event!

I'll leave you with one last flippy flip:

Real life, baby pic.twitter.com/3QEqn18wig

— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026

And a note to check our article about the redesigned Roadster as well: