The long-delayed Tesla Roadster is finally back into the spotlight, with some pretty spectacular technology to show off. The fine print behind it, though, is a lot less glamorous than the car. A $50,000 to $250,000 reservation payment gets buyers a place in line to configure and order the car, but it doesn’t guarantee delivery. The deposit counts towards the final price, stays refundable until you sign the final purchase agreement, and you cannot transfer it. The clincher? The Tesla reservation agreement explicitly says it cannot guarantee when the Roadster will be delivered, or whether it will be delivered at all.
The Deposit Is Not The Final Price
Tesla didn’t announce a price for the Roadster, either. Any of the figures being discussed are estimates, since the options, features, and hardware itself are still being finalized, with the real number confirmed only once configurations go live. The $50,000-$250,000 deposit should not be mistaken for a sticker price.
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Perhaps that’s understandable for a supercar that Tesla claims could use rocket-inspired thrusters to do things ordinary cars can’t. Tesla claimed a 0 to 60 mph time of 0.8 seconds and flaunted thruster technology inspired by SpaceX. Impressive, but it remains to be seen how much of the wizardry makes it past regulators and what actually ends up being road legal. The big question is how much of that spectacle survives the transition from demonstration to production. Which leaves two separate unknowns, confirmed by Tesla itself: what the Roadster will cost when it arrives, and whether it arrives at all.
Nine Years Later, The Wait Still Goes On
Tesla unveiled the second-generation Roadster in 2017 and aimed to start production in 2020. Deadlines slipped, promises piled up, and now Tesla points to 2028 as the new production target. That leaves early reservation holders with about nine years of waiting behind them at this point.
The refund window caps the financial risk before you sign the final agreement. But it does nothing to make the Roadster any more certain. So while the Roadster is back in the center stage, Tesla’s own fine print declines to promise when or if you will ever actually sit in one.
