Tesla Roadster reveal pushed back two weeks to October 15 as weather forces second postponement

Tesla postpones the Roadster event to October 15

Tesla has officially pushed its second-generation Roadster demonstration from October 1 to October 15, blaming severe conditions in the central Texas forecast. In a post on X, the company said: "We've been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we've made the difficult decision to reschedule. New date is October 15." Tesla said additional details would follow. Electrek first reported that invitees had been warned a reschedule was possible, hours before Tesla confirmed the new date. ²

The postponement was independently reported by Chasing Cars, which noted the event had been scheduled for the following day in the Texan city of Waco and that Tesla claims it cannot be held indoors, and by TechCrunch, which quoted the same X statement. MotorTrend also updated its coverage to reflect the shift from October 1 to October 15, citing severe weather concerns. The new date is a Thursday, exactly two weeks after the original slot. ¹²⁴⁵

The event is expected to take place at SpaceX's rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, near Waco. Electrek, which reported the McGregor location in August, said the plan is to make the Roadster hover using a SpaceX-developed cold gas thruster package, with nobody in the car and spectators kept several hundred yards back. Tesla has not officially detailed what will take place during the reveal, though the original invite sent to media and influencers confirmed the October 1 date in Waco with food and refreshments available, RSVPs due by September 16 and no one under 21 admitted, according to Tesla North. ²⁶

Electrek questions whether weather is the full story

Electrek's analysis argues the two-week postponement is longer than the weather alone would justify. Citing Open-Meteo forecast data for McGregor updated the Monday before the original date, Electrek reported an 82 per cent chance of precipitation on October 1 with thunderstorms, gusts around 30 mph and more than 4 inches of rain, but noted the forecast dries out quickly: rain chances fall below half an inch by Friday, and the outlook is mostly dry from October 5 onward. "We're not buying that this is only about the weather," the outlet wrote, suggesting Tesla may be running into issues with the hover demo itself. Electrek separately reported that Musk told staff the demonstration "will be hard to pull off and could go wrong". That interpretation is the publication's own analysis, not a confirmed explanation from Tesla. ²

A delay history stretching back to 2017

The second-generation Roadster was unveiled as a prototype on November 16, 2017, at the Tesla Semi event, with production originally promised for 2020. MotorTrend recounts how those dates then slid from 2021 to 2022 to 2023 and beyond, mostly announced during Tesla shareholder updates. Chasing Cars tallies the postponements in detail: July 2020 to 2021, January 2021 to 2022, September 2021 to 2023, May 2023 to 2024, and February 2024 to 2025, and counts the latest shift as at least the seventh delay for the halo car. ¹⁵

More recent slips have been just as frequent. In November 2025, Musk announced the Roadster would break cover on April 1, 2026, a date Chasing Cars notes came and went; TechCrunch adds that Musk said at Tesla's 2025 annual meeting, the same one where he was awarded a $1 trillion pay package, that an April Fools' Day event would offer him "some deniability" if it slipped again: "Like, I could say I was just kidding." Electrek lists the subsequent targeted demo windows that passed without an event: late April, then "maybe in a month or so", then August, then October 1. ¹²⁴

The October 1 date itself was only confirmed in mid-September. On September 12, Tesla posted a cryptic "Go for launch" teaser on X with a "10.01" graphic and a link to its Roadster page, as reported by TechCrunch and Tesla North. The Information, cited by TechCrunch, reported the 2017 version of the car had been completely abandoned in favour of a new, yet-to-be-revealed design. Tesla's website countdown page, which Chasing Cars noted gave a date of October 1, has now had 14 days added to it. ¹³⁶

The original promises: specs and price

When the prototype was revealed in 2017, Musk said the Roadster 2.0 would hit 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, reach a top speed of more than 250 mph, seat four people, and carry a 200kWh battery good for 620 miles of range, at a base price of US$200,000 or US$250,000 for a special "Founders Series". Chasing Cars frames those figures in Australian terms: the initial claims included a 200kWh battery, nearly double the capacity of the largest batteries on the market even today, a range approaching 1000km, and a 0-100km/h time of roughly two seconds. ¹⁵

Those specifications are now nine years old and, as Chasing Cars observes, have "varied wildly" since the announcement and have often been difficult to believe. Tesla North cautions that final pricing, production timing and street-legal specifications all remain unconfirmed, and that given Tesla's track record with this model, the October event should be viewed strictly as a product demonstration rather than the start of customer deliveries. ¹⁶

SpaceX thrusters and the hover demo

The most eye-catching element of the delayed reveal is the promised rocket hardware. In 2018, Musk announced a "SpaceX option package" of approximately 10 small rocket thrusters arranged around the Roadster, a package he reiterated in 2020, according to MotorTrend. By 2024, Musk claimed Tesla and SpaceX had radically increased the Roadster's design goals, saying it would accelerate from 0-60 mph in less than one second, calling that "the least interesting part", and suggesting it might "fly a little". Chasing Cars notes the rockets might be the plumes visible above the car on the Roadster's countdown website, and that Autocar reports the car is able to hover or float across water. ¹⁵

The rocket boosters have repeatedly been mooted as an option that could, it has been proposed, shorten the 0-100km/h time to about a second, Chasing Cars reports. TechCrunch presumes the outdoor venue requirement exists because Tesla has been working on integrating cold gas thrusters from SpaceX that are supposed to make the Roadster fly in some capacity. Electrek's August reporting, referenced in its latest article, described a remote-controlled hover demonstration plan with the car unoccupied and spectators kept well back. ¹²⁴

Deposits taken, production still up in the air

Tesla collected US$50,000 deposits from prospective Roadster customers, and some people paid US$250,000 to reserve one of 1000 "Founders Series" versions, TechCrunch reports. The project has drawn public frustration from at least one high-profile reservation holder: last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X that "7.5 years has felt like a long time to wait" for his own new Roadster, though Musk claimed Altman had gotten a refund. Electrek, in its own commentary, notes that nobody who put down US$50,000 or US$250,000 asked for a hover stunt. ²³⁴

Production timing remains uncertain even after the reveal. Musk has previously acknowledged that the Roadster will not go into production for another 12 or 18 months after it is finally shown, TechCrunch reports, and Electrek notes production is still guided for "2027 or 2028". For Australia, Chasing Cars reports the Roadster could cost around AU$300,000 or more if and when it arrives here, though no Australian launch plans have been announced. ¹²³

The original Roadster, which got Tesla its start in the early 2010s, was largely based on the Lotus Elise, and the second-generation car was meant to be the first supercar the company designed from the ground up, TechCrunch recounts. The October 15 event now represents the next instalment in a reveal saga that has run for nearly a decade, with the hover-capable hypercar still to make its production-design public debut. ⁴