How many Roadsters did Tesla produce World-wide? How many have been decommissioned..

[wiztecy]

Been curious about this for a while.... so how many Tesla Roadsters did Tesla produce World-wide? How many have been decommissioned... crashed... and any idea of how many exist intact and driveable today. Also how many are Prototypes? These should also be included in the numbers but not counted in what's in the public domain.

 

[smorgasbord]

I believe the total was about 2500. Wikipedia says "over 2400" but I don't believe that counts the additional 100 Tesla got Lotus to build near the end.

FWIW, VINs in the US went to something like 1365, but I don't know if Sigs and/or Founders had their own sequencing.

As for crashed, etc., that's going to be a guess. I do know that one of TEG's hobbies is collecting at least one photo of every Roadster made, and I just gotta assume that TEG being TEG he's got a spreadsheet that tracks the public demise of each one he knows of....

TEG?

 

[markwj]

I do know that one of TEG's hobbies is collecting at least one photo of every Roadster made, and I just gotta assume that TEG being TEG he's got a spreadsheet that tracks the public demise of each one he knows of....

Not to mention a photographic memory for VINs and skills at scraping websites.

 

[wiztecy]

TEG?

I haven't seen any TEG activity or any Good TEGness fun going on lately... I hope he's ok and doing well! Always a joy reading and learning Tesla insightfulness from TEG!

Also saw the wiki mention of the numbers... just came across this in the footnote:
"Todd Woody (2012-07-25). "Tesla Hits Accelerator Despite Q2 Revenue Miss". Forbes. Retrieved 2012-07-25. More than 2,350 units sold through June 2012."

Again not an exact number... there has to be one.

 

[TEG]

~10 EPs in 2006 (prototypes never sold)
~14 VPs in 2007 (validation cars)
~18 VPs in 2008
~27 Founders' cars in 2008
~485 Regular production roadsters made in 2008
~668 Roadsters made in 2010 for North America
~294 Roadsters made in 2011 for North America
~1012 Roadsters made for Europe/Asia/Australia in 2010/2011/2012
== ~2528 if you include the prototypes, cars used in crash testing, etc.
I didn't count mules or bucks


I don't think any EPs were sold. I suspect they were all decommissioned.
I think many of the later VPs were sold.
Rough guess would be maybe half of the VPs eventually got sold...
It may even be something like the 2007 VPs weren't sold, but the 2008 ones were.

The numbers above are all based on "model year" (as found in the VIN), not based on year of production.

 

[BartJ]

~10 EPs in 2006 (prototypes never sold)
~14 VPs in 2007 (validation cars)
~18 VPs in 2008
~27 Founders' cars in 2008
~485 Regular production roadsters made in 2008
~668 Roadsters made in 2010 for North America
~294 Roadsters made in 2011 for North America
~1012 Roadsters made for Europe/Asia/Australia in 2010/2011/2012
== ~2528 if you include the prototypes, cars used in crash testing, etc.
I didn't count mules or bucks

So no cars made in 2009 ??

 

[ecarfan]

So no cars made in 2009 ??

I am nowhere near the Roadster expert that @TEG and others on TMC are, but I am certain that hundreds of cars were produced in 2009. I own one that was produced in May 2009 (I think that is the month) and I have seen door stickers on other cars that also show a month in 2009.

Thanks to @TEG for that list.

@wiztecy, it is interesting to speculate on how many Roadster are still in drivable condition and in use (or at least privately owned and maintained but rarely used, some collectors with many cars just don't drive in particular car in their collection very often) but we can only speculate. I would make a SWAG that at least a hundred Roadsters have been crashed and not been repairable, maybe more. There is no way to know an accurate figure since the cars are spread across at least 5 continents (obviously none are in Antarctic and believe a few are in South Africa?).

 

[Sparrow]

I believe more than half of the 485 listed for 2008 were completed in 2009. My #189 has a production date of January 2009, but I assume it started production much earlier in 2008.

 

[DaveD]

TEG may be referring to the fact that there were no MY2009 Roadsters. Telsa started the production of the MY2008 Rodasters late, and they jumped to MY2010 for the next run.

 

[ecarfan]

TEG may be referring to the fact that there were no MY2009 Roadsters. Telsa started the production of the MY2008 Rodasters late, and they jumped to MY2010 for the next run.

Thanks, understood, though I have always found that rather confusing. Tesla does not seem to use the traditional "model year" concept for the S and X, but it seems that they did for the Roadster, as I can recall more than once when talking to Tesla about my Roadster that they referred to it as a "2008". Just checked the sticker on the driver side door and it shows "Month & Year of Manufacture April 2009" (I did not remember the month correctly in my post just upthread).

So on my 1.5 which is VIN #425 it shows as manufactured in 2009. My understanding is that the last 1.5 was built in May of that year and the 2.0 version went into production in June 2009 or thereabouts. So again it is confusing to me why Tesla skipped the 2009 year designation. Car companies that follow the traditional model year concept (all other car companies, as far as I know) generally introduce their new model year cars in the fall, as in around September.

Personally I dislike the traditional model year concept and applaud Tesla for no longer using it.

 

[DaveD]

Thanks, understood, though I have always found that rather confusing. Tesla does not seem to use the traditional "model year" concept for the S and X, but it seems that they did for the Roadster, as I can recall more than once when talking to Tesla about my Roadster that they referred to it as a "2008". Just checked the sticker on the driver side door and it shows "Month & Year of Manufacture April 2009" (I did not remember the month correctly in my post just upthread).

So on my 1.5 which is VIN #425 it shows as manufactured in 2009. My understanding is that the last 1.5 was built in May of that year and the 2.0 version went into production in June 2009 or thereabouts. So again it is confusing to me why Tesla skipped the 2009 year designation. Car companies that follow the traditional model year concept (all other car companies, as far as I know) generally introduce their new model year cars in the fall, as in around September.

Personally I dislike the traditional model year concept and applaud Tesla for no longer using it.

I suspect that Tesla went with model year designation for Roadsters because that's what Lotus and parts suppliers were used to dealing with. After they gained enough experience, as well as acquiring their own production plant, Elon and/or others at Tesla apparently said "screw that", and for the Model S, X, etc., several industry norms went bye-bye at Tesla.

 

[Sig72]

TEG may be referring to the fact that there were no MY2009 Roadsters. Telsa started the production of the MY2008 Rodasters late, and they jumped to MY2010 for the next run.

That's correct. Most "2008" MY 1.5's were actually manufactured in 2009. My Signature (#72) was built in November of 2008 if that gives you reference for just how many 2008's were actually manufactured in calendar year 08.

On a different note @TEG do you know how many VP's and EP's were sold to the public? Several are driven by Tesla employee's and are half personal/half experimental cars (Spencer L., J.B., etc....) but how many were sold to folks outside of Tesla?

 

[slcasner]

I don't think any EPs were sold. I suspect they were all decommissioned.

I recall seeing EP2 on display in Menlo Park not long before that location was closed. The car had different seats than those originally installed.

 

[racevpr]

We have been buying salvage Roadsters. Would you be interested in a list of decommissioned cars?

 

[NomoC8]

We have been buying salvage Roadsters. Would you be interested in a list of decommissioned cars?

yes, please.

 

[dpeilow]

There seems to be some project going on with VP16. I saw photos on Facebook but no way to link them easily.

 

[TEG]

I moved some posts specifically about production dates to this new thread:
Roadster production dates