New Tesla Roadster revealed with STUNNING performance

A new Tesla Roadster has been revealed by Elon Musk, with a 200kWh battery pack promising 0-60mph in just 1.9 seconds and a £150,000 price tag.

Last night was supposed to be about Tesla’s new electric lorry (or ‘Semi’, as the Americans call it), but that was completely overshadowed by this – the new Tesla Roadster.

No longer a Lotus with a big battery, the second generation Tesla Roadster is a proper electric supercar, with Elon Musk promising (he’s good at that) a production car which will sound the death knell of the ICE supercar.

If the performance figures Musk is promising turn out to be a reality – o-60mph in 1.9 seconds, 0-100mph in 4.2 seconds, standing quarter mile in 8.9 seconds and a 250mph top speed – then it will set a benchmark no ICE car could match.

Tesla are promising a 200kWh battery pack for the Roadster which will be good for a 620 mile range (well, as long as you don’t use all that performance).

The surprise reveal of a car which is still at least three years away came as Tesla revealed its new electric lorry, and it genuinely was a surprise for all present at what was expected just to be the reveal of Tesla’s lorry.

But the reveal of the new Tesla Roadster – six years after the original Roadster ended production – does beg a few of questions.

Is the reveal of the new Roadster a reality for 2020 – as Musk says – or is it an elaborate diversion tactic to deflect attention from the real problems Tesla is facing?

Is diverting resources in to developing an electric lorry and the world’s fastest electric supercar realistic for a company facing an existential crisis thanks to its apparent inability to fix the enormous production problems it faces with the Model 3?

And should the Tesla Roadster have been the car Tesla delivered instead of the Model 3?

As a maker of expensive, appealing, high performance cars – Model S, Model X and Roadster Supercar – Tesla could have been a huge success. Musk’s obsession with an ‘affordable’ electric car for the masses could still be his downfall.

It all depends on just how long the market is prepared to carry on delivering endless cash to a company which is ridiculously overvalued and never made a penny in profit.

But oh, the new Tesla Roadster is very appealing.