The Tesla CEO was speaking to Executive chairman of the X Prize Foundation Peter H Diamandis when he also noted that safety is not the main goal for any sports car.

Dale Miller’s Tesla Roadster is parked in his garage in San Rafael, Calif. on Thursday, March 15, 2018. (Photo By Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday touted the company’s upcoming next-generation Roadster vehicle as “the best of the last of human driven cars,” while also noting that safety is not going to be the key priority for the sports car.

“Safety is not the prime—its not the main goal,” Musk said in an interview with Executive chairman of the X Prize Foundation Peter H Diamandis published on YouTube on Tuesday. The billionaire CEO also noted that safety is not the main goal for any sports car, including the Ferrari.
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“If safety is your #1 goal, don’t buy the Roadster,” he said, while raising anticipation for the car’s upcoming launch. “We’ll aspire not to kill anyone in this car but it will be something. It’ll be the best of the last of the human driven cars.”

The New Lineup Addition

Tesla has not launched a new vehicle since the start of deliveries of its stainless steel Cybertruck in late November 2023. Since then, the company has revamped the design language of existing models and launched new variants, but not a new vehicle.

The new Roadster is a tribute to Tesla’s first electric vehicle, also called the Roadster, produced by the company between 2008 and 2012. The second generation of the Roadster was originally announced in November 2017 and deliveries were slated to begin in 2020.

Since, Musk has announced several timelines for the start of deliveries of the vehicle but they have been pushed. In November, during Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, Musk said that the company will hold a product demo for the vehicle on April 1, 2026, and production will start in the first half of 2027. He also added that he picked April 1 because he could claim “deniability” and say, “I was just kidding” in case the launch does not happen.

Meanwhile, Tesla is slated to start volume production of its two-seater Cybercab this year with no steering wheel or pedals. The Cybercab is key to Musk’s ambitions of pivoting Tesla into artificial intelligence and robotics in addition to EV manufacturing.

Impact On Tesla’s Financials

While the new Roadster will be the latest addition to the company’s lineup, it is not expected to move the company’s finances in a big way.

“Financially, it’s sort of a small potato situation. It’s not going to move the needle in a major way financially. It’s not even the icing on the cake but the cherry on the icing on the cake,” Musk said in May 2023.

Tesla had initially announced that the vehicle would have a starting price of $200,000, higher than its Cybertruck, which starts at a price of $79,990. The Cybertruck is among Tesla’s lower-volume models, together with its higher-end Model S and Model X vehicles.

SpaceX-Tesla Collaboration

Musk has also previously said that Tesla is working with his rocket manufacturing company, SpaceX, for the Roadster to enable it to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than a second, lower than the company’s initial estimate of 1.9 seconds.

Musk declined to reveal the hover time for the Roadster in the interview with Diamandis on Monday, terming it “classified” information.

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around TSLA shares stayed within the ‘extremely bearish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume stayed at ‘high’ levels.