The New Tesla Roadster: Why It REALLY Took 9 Years to Build

Nine years.That's how long Tesla customers have been waiting for the new Roadster.In November 2017, Elon Musk unveiled a $200,000 electric supercar that promised to reach 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, exceed 250 mph, and travel 620 miles on a single charge.It was supposed to arrive in 2020.Then 2021. Then 2022. Then 2023.And somewhere along the way, it acquired rocket thrusters, SpaceX engineers, a carbon-fibre chassis, and a promise that it might actually fly.Now, after nine years, Tesla has finally revealed what became of the Roadster.But the real question isn't simply why it took so long.It's whether Tesla couldn't build the car it promised — or whether Elon Musk kept changing what that car was supposed to be.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEWe trace the extraordinary nine-year story of the Tesla Roadster — from its surprise unveiling in the back of a Tesla Semi trailer in 2017 to its transformation into one of the most ambitious and repeatedly delayed cars ever announced.The original Roadster was supposed to change everything.Three electric motors.A 200 kWh battery.620 miles of range.0–60 mph in 1.9 seconds.And performance that would embarrass million-dollar hypercars for a fraction of the price.Tesla even accepted $50,000 reservations, with Founders Series customers paying $250,000 up front.But while customers waited, Tesla had other priorities.The Model 3 was struggling through production hell.The Model Y needed launching.Gigafactories were being built around the world.And the Cybertruck was on the way.Elon Musk described the Roadster as dessert — something Tesla would get around to after the important work was finished.Then, in June 2021, something extraordinary happened.Tesla released the Model S Plaid.It had three motors, five seats, and could reach 60 mph in approximately two seconds.It delivered almost exactly the acceleration Tesla had promised for the Roadster four years earlier.And it cost $70,000 less.So why was the Roadster still nowhere to be seen?Behind the scenes, Tesla was reportedly debating an entirely different kind of car.One team wanted to adapt the Model S Plaid platform.Another wanted a lightweight carbon-fibre hypercar, closer to something from McLaren, Pagani or Koenigsegg.Musk chose carbon.The design evolved. The engineering changed. The deadlines slipped.And then came the SpaceX package.Instead of simply using electric motors, Musk wanted compressed-gas thrusters capable of improving acceleration, braking and cornering.He suggested the car might hover.Or even fly.By 2024, Tesla was promising 0–60 mph in under one second, while SpaceX engineers were reportedly working directly on the Roadster's propulsion system.So what really happened?Was the Roadster an engineering challenge Tesla couldn't solve?Was it deliberately pushed aside while more profitable vehicles took priority?Or did Elon Musk repeatedly move the goalposts until the car Tesla had originally promised no longer existed?Because the strangest part of the Roadster story might be that Tesla actually built much of what it promised back in 2017.It just called it the Model S Plaid.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel:https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Tesla #TeslaRoadster #ElonMusk #SpaceX #ModelSPlaid #ElectricCars #TeslaNews #TeslaRoadster2026 #Hypercar #CarHistory #AutomotiveHistory #TheCarNerd