Tesla will make theCybertruck and ramp up Model Y production before moving to the $200,000 Roadster, CEOElon Musk said.- The topic came up on
Joe Rogan 's podcast, where Musk appeared this week for his second guest appearance. - There's no clear date on when to expect the Roadster.
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In a Thursday podcast with Joe Rogan, popular guest and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is prioritizing its other planned cars over the $200,000
Rogan asked Musk when he'd be able to purchase a Roadster, as reported by Reuters, but Musk didn't have a date. Instead, Musk said increasing production of the Model Y midsize SUV and the building of a Gigafactory in Berlin, Germany, were his priorities.
"This COVID thing's kind of thrown us for a loop," Musk said when asked when the Roadster would be on sale. "Not to blame everything on COVID, but it's certainly set us back on progress for some number of months.
"Roadster is kind of like dessert. We gotta get the meat and potatoes and greens and stuff."
When asked if the Roadster would come before the Cybertruck — Tesla's upcoming electric truck that looks like it was folded out of shiny paper — Musk let out a long sigh.
"I mean, I think we should do Cybertruck first, before Roadster," he said.
Tesla first announced the new Roadster in 2017. Accompanying it were absurd, pie-in-the-sky claims, such as how it would hit 60 mph from a standstill in just 1.9 seconds and how it would run a quarter-mile in a mere 8.9 seconds. Top speed would be a claimed 250 mph. It'd have a 620-mile range from a 250 kWh battery pack and a starting price of $200,000.
Musk himself then took to Twitter — his choice platform for making announcements — to tout the upcoming Roadster's features. Maybe it wouldn't need a key at all. Maybe it would even have rocket technology that would enable it to "fly short hops."
The Roadster that debuted in 2017 was a mere concept. While the Roadster was initially expected to launch in 2020, Musk tweeted in September 2019 that the next Model S would go into production first and that the Roadster "will come later." It wasn't clear when exactly that would be.
This is the second time Musk has appeared on Rogan's podcast. He used the opportunity to double down on criticizing statewide stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, he called the measures "forcible imprisoning," "fascist," and "not democratic." He also called panic about the pandemic "dumb" on March 6.
Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, stopped producing cars on March 23 after the local stay-at-home order. A leaked email said the company intended to begin production again on Friday, as Business Insider previously reported.
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