To say that the Tesla Roadster is in big, big demand would be an understatement. The car, which has been plagued by delays, is not due for another year—at least—as a global semiconductor shortage hits the industry. That, however, has done little to curb buyers’ enthusiasm who are paying top dollar to reserve the much-awaited offering from maverick billionaire Elon Musk’s company.
How much is too much?
Tesla’s US website for reserving the Roadster requires buyers to pay $5,000 (around Rs 3.79 lakh) through credit card but that is not even half the deal done.
After the credit card payment, the buyer has 10 days to wire transfer another $45,000 (Rs 34.1 lakh). Tesla has made it clear that the reservation isn’t final until the wire transfer comes through.
That is a neat Rs 37.9 lakh to reserve what is expected to be a $200,000 (Rs 1.5 crore without taxes) car. It’s also what you’d pay for a long-range Tesla Model Y in the US or a range-topping Model 3.
Hey, good lookin
But, why the Roadster? For starters, it’s arguably the best-looking Tesla there has ever been.
While the Cybertruck looks like a cyberpunk DLC from a video game, the Roadster has some very conventional cues mixed with a smattering of futuristic design work that makes it look phenomenal. More than a Koenigsegg or a Pagani? No, but none of them, try as they may, boast of the absolutely bonkers performance figures of the Roadster, which can reportedly do 0-100 in 1.9 seconds.
It’s also the only Tesla to come bearing provenance, as the Roadster name put Tesla on the map (there’s even one floating around in outer space).
The first car to bear the Tesla name had a repurposed Lotus Elise chassis and went a long way in establishing EVs as high-performance forces to be reckoned with and not just benign golf carts.
Nearly two decades later, the new Roadster is a very different animal or at least that is the claim—no one has seen a production version yet.
The Roadster will be manufactured at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, unlike the Cybertruck that will be built at the recently inaugurated gigafactory in Texas aka GigaTexas.
All charged up
The Roadster will feature a massive 200kWh battery which has a claimed range of nearly 1000km. Unless you use its full accelerative prowess in which case the range will drop much faster.
Musk also tweeted in 2018 that a special SpaceX option would also be available with 10 small rocket thrusters “arranged seamlessly around the car”, a nod to his space ambitions.
These will, according to him, “dramatically improve acceleration, braking and cornering”, which is putting it mildly because it would allow the Roadster to hit 100kph from a standstill in a neck-snapping 1.1 seconds.
The Tesla Roadster has resurfaced on the brand’s pages after three months when the car’s pictures and its price were taken down from the company’s website.
Its return has placated many potential buyers along with those who pre-booked the $250,000 Founders series version.
Musk, who earlier said the chip shortage was “a short-term problem”, took to Twitter once again to clarify that the Roadster, expected to arrive in 2022, would now only ship in 2023 because semiconductors were in a short supply.
He said, “2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship.”
The supply shortage, brought about by COVID restrictions initially, also stems from the rising price of lithium whose demand has shot up following a surge in fuel prices, which has boosted EV sales.
On April 9, Musk tweeted that if the prices of lithium did not improve, Tesla would start mining and refining lithium at scale. Lithium was abundant available but “the pace of extraction/refinement” was slow, he said.
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