Tesla Roadster demo slips to October 15 as BYD and Xiaomi already sell its promises (and failed)

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has pushed the live debut of its second-generation Roadster back two weeks, from October 1 to October 15, 2026, citing a severe weather forecast for its outdoor venue in central Texas. The slip adds another date to a car first shown in November 2017. The bigger test for Tesla may already have been run in China, where two automakers built and sold electric cars that match most of the Roadster's original numbers, then watched demand for them fade within months.

Tesla said the event can only be held outdoors, at SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, near Waco. The company plans to demonstrate a SpaceX-developed cold gas thruster system meant to let the car leave the ground in some form, which requires open air and calm conditions. The October 1 forecast called for thunderstorms, an 82% chance of rain and gusts near 30 mph (48 km/h), although the system was expected to clear within days. The Roadster page on Tesla’s website now shows only a countdown clock and a reservation button.

Official teaser for the October 15, 2026 Roadster event, hinting at the SpaceX-derived thruster system; rendering (Tesla)

The core promises have not changed since the 2017 reveal: 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph (402 km/h), 620 miles (998 km) of range from a 200 kWh pack, and a base price of about $200,000. The first 1,000 Founders Series cars were priced at $250,000, paid in full up front, while standard reservations required $50,000. This year alone, the reveal has moved from April 1 to late April, then August, then October 1 and now October 15. Production was originally due in 2020. Tesla now guides to 2027 or 2028.

China did not wait. BYD (HKG: 1211) put its Yangwang U9 on sale on February 25, 2024, priced at 1.68 million CNY (c. $250,800), almost exactly the Roadster Founders Series price. The U9 makes more than 1,300 hp, reaches 100 km/h in 2.36 seconds, tops out at 309.19 km/h (192 mph), and uses an active suspension that can lift the car and make it bounce in place, a party trick BYD showed off at launch.

Customer deliveries began in mid-2024, meaning buyers were driving a Chinese electric supercar at Roadster money more than two years before Tesla's rescheduled production reveal.

The U9 costs 1.68 million CNY in China, and 208 have been sold at retail since deliveries began in 2024 (Yangwang)

Xiaomi (HKG: 1810) went further on raw numbers. Its SU7 Ultra sedan launched on February 27, 2025 at 529,900 CNY (c. $79,100), with 1,548 PS from three motors, 0 to 100 km/h in 1.98 seconds, and a top speed above 350 km/h (217 mph). Its CLTC range is 620 km (385 miles), the same figure Tesla promised for the Roadster, only in kilometers. In June 2025, a production SU7 Ultra with the track package lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 7:04.957, a record for a production EV.

What happened after launch is the part Tesla should study. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the SU7 Ultra passed 15,000 firm orders by the night of February 28, 2025, after clearing its 10,000-unit full-year target within two hours. Insurance registrations then worked through that backlog: 3,099 in March 2025, between 2,231 and 2,494 each month from April to August, then 488 in September and 130 in October.

The car ended 2025 with 15,728 registrations, close to the order book Lei Jun announced in the first days on sale. In 2026 it has settled into a trickle, with 56 registrations in August after 57 in July, for a total of 389 through the first eight months. At its mid-2025 pace of roughly 80 cars a day, the SU7 Ultra now registers fewer cars in a month than it once did in a single day.

The SU7 Ultra registered 15,728 units in 2025 but just 56 in August 2026 (Xiaomi)

The Yangwang U9 never had a spike to come down from. It recorded 4 registrations in August 2026, with no July figure listed, and has 16 retail sales in the first eight months of the year. Since deliveries began, cumulative retail volume stands at 208 units: 88 in 2024, 104 in 2025 and 16 so far in 2026.

Put those figures next to Tesla's own plan. The Founders Series alone was meant to be 1,000 cars at $250,000 each, roughly five times the U9's entire retail history at a nearly identical price. In August, China's two most prominent electric performance flagships combined for 60 registrations in the world's largest EV market. Neither car has kept selling in meaningful numbers once its early adopters were served.

The Chinese data suggests that demand for an electric car above $200,000 is concentrated in the pre-launch queue. Xiaomi served its order book in about seven months, then monthly volume fell by 95% within two months. Tesla's reservation list, built from 2017 onward, is the same kind of queue, and some of it has already walked away. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly complained about his seven-and-a-half-year wait, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Altman had received a refund.

Tesla also faces a spec problem that did not exist in 2017. The 1.9-second claim was headline material then, and a Chinese sedan priced at c. $79,100 now reaches 100 km/h in 1.98 seconds. Musk has since said the production Roadster will hit 60 mph in under one second, which may explain why the October event is built around flight rather than straight-line numbers. A working hover demo would give the Roadster a claim that neither the U9 nor the SU7 Ultra spec sheet can answer, whatever the stopwatch says.

If the weather holds, October 15 will show whether a hovering Roadster can do what the U9's bouncing suspension and the SU7 Ultra's lap record could not: keep buyers coming once the first wave has taken delivery.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 6.6995 CNY as of September 22, 2026.