Dropping $50,000 to reserve a driverless Tesla you cannot drive yet, at a price nobody has confirmed, for delivery at a date Tesla will not guarantee, takes a particular kind of buyer. After Tesla’s prototype briefly left a ramp, rotated in midair using compressed-gas thrusters, and landed in October 2026, a few more of those buyers stepped forward, as reported by WIRED.
WIRED identified who some of them are. The answer is not who you might expect.
The Buyers
The people placing five- and six-figure reservations are business owners and collectors, not ordinary early adopters.
Alex Lawrence owns EVAuto, a used-electric-vehicle dealership with a growing social media presence. He already held one second-generation Roadster reservation before watching the prototype’s aerial demonstration, according to WIRED. His response was immediate: “I placed another one,” he told WIRED. Lawrence views the Roadster as a potential business asset, useful on a track and in marketing content rather than as personal transportation.
Travis Cook is a Utah-based technology founder who holds a dealer’s license and buys and sells unusual performance vehicles, per WIRED. He maintained a base-model reservation for nearly a decade. He then upgraded to the Thrust version, which carries a total reservation cost of $250,000, according to Tesla’s reservation page. His motivation comes through in his own words:
For Cook, the Roadster is a collector experience, not a commuter solution.
These two buyers, as profiled by WIRED, are not impulsive early adopters. They are a business owner and a collector treating the Roadster as either a promotional asset or a rare object worth paying to access.
What $50,000 Actually Reserves
The reservation fees are substantial, but Tesla’s own agreement makes clear they are not purchase prices.
Tesla currently lists three Roadster configurations. The Performance version requires $5,000 at checkout and the remaining $45,000 within ten days, for a total reservation payment of $50,000, per Tesla’s reservation page.
The Thrust version adds acceleration thrusters and requires a total reservation payment of $250,000. The Rocket version includes the flight system, is invite-only, and is not approved for public-road use; Tesla has not publicly listed its reservation fee.
None of these payments constitutes a purchase price. Tesla’s reservation agreement states that the final price has not yet been confirmed, that the vehicle remains under development, and that options and features are still being finalized. The reservation amount applies toward the eventual purchase if the buyer proceeds, and delivery timing is not guaranteed. Understanding what ownership truly costs across vehicle types , electric versus gas versus diesel , adds useful context to a commitment of this size.
The October 2026 demonstration also deserves precise framing. Per Fortune’s reporting from October 17, 2026, the prototype briefly left a ramp, rotated in midair, and landed using compressed-gas thrusters. That is a controlled aerial maneuver, not sustained flight. The Rocket configuration remains outside the bounds of public-road approval.
Cook told WIRED that the demonstration exceeded his expectations and expressed confidence that Tesla would eventually deliver. Lawrence’s stated motivation is more direct: the spectacle has marketing value for his business.
The Actual Bet
Every reservation ties up real money against a vehicle whose price, specifications, and delivery date are all still unsettled.
The Roadster was first announced in 2017. Tesla originally targeted deliveries in 2020. Production is now expected to begin in 2028, per Fortune, nearly a decade after that original window closed.
That gap is worth sitting with. Reservation holders are committing significant sums to a vehicle whose final price, specifications, and timeline remain open questions, as Tesla’s own agreement acknowledges. Much like how dealers keep recommending costly add-ons of uncertain value, this is not a standard consumer purchase; it is a bet placed on a brand, a brief airborne demonstration, and the kind of patience most buyers reserve for things they cannot get anywhere else.
