Tesla Roadster (2020) Coming to Jay Leno's Garage in Aug 23 Episode

This Thursday, August 23, Jay Leno’s Garage will feature the next-gen Tesla Roadster (2020). Here’s a preview of Leno talking to Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen in a tidbit teased on CNBC last Friday:

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The new generation Roadster is expected to hit the roads in 2020 and is expected to be the Tesla ‘halo car’ that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the days of internal combustion engines are, indeed, numbered.

The new Roadster (2020) will feature a massive 200 kWh battery. By comparison, the Model S P100D has a battery with half that capacity. The doubled battery power will give the new-gen Roadster a mind-numbing 620 miles of range – unheard of in the world of EVs. And that’s just the base model, as revealed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the unveiling of the car as well as on different Twitoccasions.

We also expect a SpaceX option package to be available, and it’s definitely going to be out of this world if the base model is so impressive.

Acceleration time is a blazing 1.9 seconds from 0-60 mph and a top speed of 250 mph. Over 250 mph, actually, because Tesla doesn’t want to spill the beans at this point. The fastest road car in the world, the Hennessey Venom GT, was clocked at 270 mph, and it won’t be a surprise if the top-end Roadster can kill that record. Maybe even the Koenigsegg Agera RS, which was clocked at 284 mph.

That would be the ultimate halo car. Perhaps that’s what the SpaceX option includes? We don’t know, but if we know anything about Elon Musk, it is that he is a performer.

The last time a Tesla was on TV with Jay Leno was about six years ago when the Model S design and development story was showcased in an extensive segment. Here it is:

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Leno has long been an advocate of Tesla and Elon Musk, and he makes a fair point:

“We live in a world now where every year, you lose about 5% of the new car companies. In the mid-teens, there were 350 car companies in the United States. Every year since then, two or three of them dropped out. I mean, just in my lifetime, we’ve lost Oldsmobile, we’ve lost Pontiac, we’ve lost Saturn. There’s a whole bunch that just disappeared.
“So here comes a brand new car company, so that’s impressive. It’s a tough business to get into; and the fact that Tesla is making a go of it and quite successfully, I think is impressive and should be applauded. We’re becoming like the British — we like noble failures. I would watch, listen to these radio talk shows just tear Tesla apart; and I go, ‘Here’s a guy, building an American car in America, using American labor. Why are you not rooting for it to be successful? Why do you wish it would fail?’ I don’t quite understand.”

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If you want a touch of nostalgia (we’re sure Jay Leno will feel it), tune in to Jay Leno’s Garage this Thursday, August 23, for the full monty on the new-gen Roadster (2020).

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