All the discussion of the Roadster 202(X???) misses perhaps the single-most important reason (IMHO) to release it: Because they said they would. In fact, this applies to all the announced products Tesla has taken reservation monies for vs the endless discussion of the various products that Tesla could potentially make. To some degree, it's what causes some consternation when Tesla announces new products while not having delivered the products already announced many years ago.
In that frame of mind, here is a proposed priority order for the automotive side of Tesla:
1. CyberTruck delivery ramp over the next 12 months. This is only ranked #1 due to the impending launch and the expectation that within 6 months the CyberTruck can be manufactured on a true line (not just by hand), reasonably automated within 12 months.
2. Semi manufacturing on an automated assembly line within the next 12 months. As the 1 year anniversary of deliveries of hand-assembled semi trucks approaches, it is interesting that the quarterly report for 2022 Q4 mentioned the launch, listed it in pilot production, and included it in the disclaimer; 2023 Q1 and Q2 dropped the mention of the launch but kept the other two, and 2023 Q3 even excluded it from the disclaimer (most likely a typo, but still interesting). The sporadic bits of information which can be found don't portray a convincing image of an automated assembly line for significant manufacturing starting any time soon. There's precious little to even indicate material numbers have been hand-assembled since then on the existing line. Even in the worst-case scenario where for some reason Tesla has determined it is not ready for mass manufacturing, continuing to hand-assemble units would allow for greater internal learning / validations. These do not even need to be sent to external customers; Tesla can and should prioritize replacing their short-haul semis with Tesla semis ASAP; first for short routes, then for longer and routes as MegaChargers get deployed. When they are confident in the product and the automated assembly process, ship to external customers. But get building them again.
3. Roadster 2024 hand-built and delivered to external customers by Dec 31, 2024. These will likely never need to be built on an automated assembly line. The volume can be strictly limited, the price can be doubled and still sell out, etc. But a promise made is a promise to be kept.
To be clear: Yes, certainly plans can change...but unless and until Tesla removes these from the product roadmap, actually building the vehicles that they have announced, taken deposits / reservations on, etc, should be far higher priority than un-announced or announced-but-no-reservations-taken vehicles. The $25k vehicle will be nice, the robotaxi will be nice, and, yes, even a standard pickup truck body on an existing platform (S/X platform, perhaps) that could be built very quickly even if it doesn't have the towing / range / exoskeleton / extras of the CyberTruck would be nice. But deliver what has already been sold before anything else.
