Elon Musk says the new Tesla Roadster will be unveiled before the end of April 2026. That means days from now.
In March, he posted on X that the reveal would come in late April and called it “a banger next-level.”
The original April 1 date he floated at the November 2025 shareholder meeting, which he deliberately chose because, as he said himself, April Fools’ Day gave him “deniability,” came and went without an event. Late April is what remains.
Whether this one actually happens is genuinely unknown. Musk has promised the Roadster was coming within months at least seven times since 2017.
Every single one of those promises proved hollow. The car was supposed to be in driveways by 2020.
It is now 2026, and what is being promised is not a delivery date, not a production start, not even a finalized vehicle, it is an unveil of a design that Musk says will be “very different than what we’ve shown previously.”
Production is targeted for 2027-2028 at the earliest, meaning the first customers who put down deposits nine years ago will have waited a full decade.
The Timeline Of Broken Promises
When Tesla first revealed the Roadster prototype in November 2017, as a surprise at the end of the Tesla Semi launch event, it was one of the most audacious automotive announcements in recent memory.
The specs were almost hard to believe: 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery pack, a top speed above 250 mph, a base price of $200,000.
Tesla opened reservations on the spot. Standard deposits were $50,000. The first 1,000 “Founders Series” units required $250,000. Thousands of people wired the money.
What followed is a timeline worth reading in full, because each entry sounded credible at the time.
July 2020: Musk said the Roadster would come in the next 12 to 18 months. January 2021: Pushed to 2022. September 2021: Pushed to 2023. May 2023 shareholder meeting: Moved to 2024. February 2024: Promised an unveil of the production version by end of 2024 with deliveries starting in early 2025. While he was at it, he upgraded the target spec to 0-60 in under one second.
On his October 2024 Q3 earnings call, Musk admitted production was delayed again to 2025-2026.
In the November 2025 shareholder meeting, Musk said that production now wouldn’t start until 2027 or 2028, a full seven to eight years behind the original promise. Set April 1, 2026 as a “demo” date and openly told shareholders the April Fools’ date gave him “deniability.”
On March 17, 2026, Musk changed “demo” to “unveil,” slid the date to late April, and said it will be “a banger next-level.” On April 21, we still have no answers on the new Tesla Roadster.
Are There Real Signs It Could Happen?
Amid all the promises, there are a few concrete signs that something has been happening at Tesla on the Roadster program, even if it is well behind any timeline Musk ever stated.
In February 2026, Tesla filed two new trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office that included an updated silhouette of the vehicle, sleeker profile, squarer roofline than the 2017 prototype.
A separate patent application for an integrated single-piece composite seat was filed around the same time.
In October 2025, Tesla posted a job listing for a “Manufacturing Engineer, Roadster” focused on concept development and battery manufacturing equipment, a listing that confirmed the vehicle was still in early-stage manufacturing development, not final production prep.
Early 2026 Tesla investor decks still list the Roadster in “design development.”
Musk has said the production version will be very different from the prototype shown in 2017, which is consistent with the new trademark silhouettes.
He has also escalated the performance claims during the years of delays, the 0-60 target went from 1.9 seconds to under one second, the optional SpaceX package involving cold-air rocket thrusters has remained part of the pitch since 2018, and Musk has described a car that could “briefly hover” and called the upcoming unveil potentially the “most memorable product reveal ever.”
The gap between what is claimed and what exists in manufacturing development form is currently very wide.
The People Who Put Down $50,000 Nine Years Ago
The reservation situation is not abstract. Thousands of people deposited real money, $50,000 for a standard reservation, $250,000 for the Founders Series, between 2017 and 2018 expecting to have their cars within a few years. They are now nearly a decade in.
In October 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who placed his $50,000 deposit in July 2018, publicly aired his frustration after trying to cancel his reservation and discovering that Tesla’s Roadster contact email address had been shut down.
He called it “a long wait” and described “7.5 years” of waiting. The post went viral.
Musk responded by claiming the refund was processed within 24 hours and taking a shot at Altman for not mentioning that, saying “it’s in your nature” to leave that part out. The exchange underscored that Tesla’s relationship with Roadster reservation holders is under real strain.
MKBHD, the automotive content creator Marques Brownlee, announced the cancellation of his own reservation after eight years in September 2025.
Forum posts from Tesla Motors Club suggest multiple holders have encountered difficulty getting refunds, with some going as far as consulting attorneys.
Tesla’s reservation page at tesla.com/roadster/reserve remains live, current terms require a $5,000 credit card payment described as “fully refundable” and a $45,000 wire transfer within 10 days.
Tesla also owes cars to a different group. It promised 80 free Roadsters to owners who referred enough vehicle purchases through its referral program, and significant discounts to hundreds more through similar incentives. None of those commitments have been fulfilled.
What Has Happened Since The Deposits Were Taken?
While Tesla spent nine years not building the new Roadster, the competitive landscape that made the 2017 announcement so dramatic changed substantially.
The Rimac Nevera, a Croatian electric hypercar that competes directly with what the Roadster was promised to be, has been in customer hands for years.
Xiaomi’s SU7 Ultra and BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme have already set real-world performance records.
The 0-60 in under one second claim, which would have been genuinely without parallel in 2017, now sits in a field that is considerably more crowded.
The original Tesla Roadster, the first-generation car that put Tesla on the map, began production on April 18, 2008.
Musk’s March 2026 post announcing the late April unveil was a quote-tweet of an anniversary post for that original production start, eighteen years since the first Roadster went into production.
The second-generation car was supposed to represent the culmination of everything Tesla learned in the intervening years.
Will Tesla Finally Release The Roadster?
The shift from “demo” to “unveil” that Musk made in March is notable, and Electrek’s Fred Lambert, who has been covering this vehicle since the prototype debuted, has noted that it suggests Tesla may essentially be starting over with a new design.
That would explain why the language changed, and it would push actual production even further out.
Production is currently targeted for 12 to 18 months after the reveal event. If the unveil happens in late April 2026, that puts the production window somewhere between mid-2027 and late 2028.
If the unveil slips again, those dates slip with it.
With days left in April, the answer to whether this actually happens is not yet known.
