If the reveal of the Tesla Roadster left your jaw on the floor and you’re wondering if you can get one in Malaysia, good news! On Tesla Malaysia’s official website, reservations for the Roadster are now open, but it will cost you a lot of money and there are some caveats.
The Roadster is available in three configurations, with the base option being the two-seat Performance that includes active aero and a multi-mode suction system. The latter features four electric fans mounted below the rear bumper that work with deployable skirts for ground effect, with the brand claiming up to 2Gs of downforce, or twice the car’s weight.
This is enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, which is something that the McMurtry Spéirling is also capable of. As for the active aero, various body components can be deployed to generate more downforce or reduce drag, including the rear wing and fender panels.
Next up is the Thrust, which gets the same features as the Performance but adds cold-gas thrusters in the rear of the vehicle. In this configuration, the Roadster has a storage tank plumbed to valves and actuators that send high-pressure gas to four metal thruster nozzles at the back, effectively “shoving” the car forward so it can accelerate from 0-96 km/h (0-60 mph) in just 0.81 seconds.
At the very top of line-up is the Rocket, which is what was used for the live demo that saw the Roadster perform a kickflip to impress awestruck attendees. This configuration is by invite only and Tesla notes on its website that it is not approved for public road use, so you won’t be “jumping” your way over traffic.
The Rocket is deemed as “air ready” and comes with a flight system consisting of 10 perimeter cold gas thrusters arranged around the car’s body, including underneath and the nose. These handle vertical lift and directional yaw control, while the rear thrusters manage forward propulsion. The 0-96 km/h time of this configuration is a blistering 0.59 seconds.
Now that you know what you’re getting with each Roadster configuration, it’s time to talk money. To secure a reservation, the deposit for Tesla’s extreme electric vehicle (EV) is made in two separate transactions.
For both the Performance and Thrust, the first part requires an upfront payment of RM21,000, which is fully refundable. Ten days after this, you will need to pay an additional RM182,000 for the Performance, bringing the total deposit to RM203,000. If you want the Thrust, the payment due within ten days after the first is an eye-watering RM988,000 for a total deposit of RM1.009 million – you’re limited to one booking. We don’t need to talk about the Rocket since it is by invite only and there’s no option to even select it.
Do note that these are reservation payments, not the price of the car. Tesla has yet to announce how much any of the three Roadster versions will cost, in Malaysia or elsewhere. The Malaysian amounts work out to roughly the same as the reservations in the US, where it’s US$50,000 for the Performance and US$250,000 for the Thrust.
Mind you, you’re paying a sizeable deposit for a car that will only begin production in 2028 and that’s even if Tesla CEO Elon Musk keeps to his word. The Roadster you see today is very different from what Musk revealed nearly nine years ago, and the company collected high deposits back then.
When the second-generation Roadster was unveiled in November 2017, Tesla quoted a base price of US$200,000, with a US$50,000 reservation to join the waiting list. The Founder Series, covering the first 1,000 cars, cost US$250,000, and the full amount had to be paid to reserve one. The process was much the same as today, with a US$5,000 credit card payment followed by the balance of US$45,000 or US$245,000 within 10 days. In other words, the two amounts Tesla is asking for today are exactly what it asked for nearly nine years ago.
In a way, customer deposits serve as an “interest-free loan” because the company doesn’t need to provide financial returns to the buyer on the promise of delivering a groundbreaking product. Various reports also indicated that buyers have a hard time getting their money back from Tesla when they were tired of waiting. Willing to pull the trigger on a Roadster?
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