Roadster Event Videos Show the New Tesla Roadster’s Touchscreen UI Up Close

Image: Tesla

New videos from the Roadster event give a close look at the touchscreen interface inside the next-generation Roadster. That’s according to Sawyer Merritt, who attended the Oct. 15 event and posted a 108-second “in-depth look” at the car’s UI at 9:22 PM PT. He says he loves its “retro-futuristic design aesthetic.”

In the video, the display is mostly black with red and white graphics, and the driver taps through it by hand. We can see a 3D wireframe of the car with its battery highlighted on a charging screen, a bar for the charge limit, and a menu along the bottom with Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate. A track-mode screen shows a lap map, session lap times, brake and tire readouts, and a thruster gauge reading 5,500 PSI with “Boost Ready” beside it.

Sawyer also shared a clip from behind the wheel, showing “what it’s like to sit in the new Tesla Roadster, and what the on-screen controls look like.” He calls the controls “like nothing else Tesla has designed” and “very unique to this vehicle.” The video shows the screen sitting beside a squared-off steering wheel as he touches it.

Another video shows a “little easter egg” that appears when you put the Roadster into reverse. On the screen, an animated hedgehog walks up a driveway in front of a house and waves.

He also posted a wing video, quoting Tesla‘s description that it “deploys for traction, stows for speed.” A separate thruster clip says the Roadster’s thrusters use compressed gas.

Tesla showed the Roadster in Waco, Texas, after moving the event from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15 because of the weather forecast. As we covered in our reveal story, Tesla’s stated targets are under 1.6 seconds from 0 to 60 mph for the Performance version, under 0.9 for Thrust and under 0.59 for the single-seat Rocket. Tesla also posted a one-second clip of a 0.81-second run, and a reply says that’s 0.67 seconds with rollout subtracted. It didn’t say which version made the run.

Tesla has not announced pricing. It reopened reservations in September with a $50,000 deposit, split into $5,000 up front and $45,000 by wire within 10 days. Buyers who reserved after the 2017 unveil have waited through several slipped dates, and in 2024 Elon Musk promised a “most mind-blowing product demo of all time.”

Which of these UI details would you most want to try in person?