Tesla Model S – Design Analysis

Tesla_Model_S_03 So one of the most important cars on the market at this moment, and not just because it is the very new model from Tesla the American company that builded the very first saloon electric car that you can own not just rent or lease.

As we decided from the very first article, in the design analysis of the cars featured here, we are not interested in anything more than the aesthetics of these cars. We don’t care if it is going to be a commercial success, or not, if it is too expensive, how fast, how many… so on. But in this article we are going to look a bit more to all this facts, because the Model S is such a new car in many ways that it is impossible to ignore the meaning of this first “real” electric car.

We want to start with just two mentions.

We are used to hear the cars when we drive them and listen to all the noise crackles and “singing” of the exhaust pipes and all this has become part of the emotion of driving a car and enjoying the process. We so often hear about how great a certain engine sounds and we debate about how natural or artificially the exhaust note is in different carmakers. So the Model S it is not going to have this feature that for so many of us is going to be a minus in terms of desire factor.

Owning this car for many will be not that much the fact that they save the planet but more the fact that it is the very last gadget and in the same time an object that reflects a certain image of you, that you’ll like others to think of you even if you are totally the opposite. So what we want to say is that this car it will be bought by many not because of the way it looks or that is a spacious car, but for other reasons like the one written above.

Let’s see now the market where this car has just entered. Until recently the market of electric cars was full of ugly boxes, or deformed objects on wheels that being seen driving them meant that you are a lunatic with no taste or the strangest man in the world that had no friends or family. Also it meant that buying an electric car was to go to an obscure company that was modifying a small car, like a Peugeot 106, and sticking any horrible graphics to show that you are the sucker that paid them money for the most unreliable thing in the world that will broke down in 5 meters and stop working as soon as the air was not 100% dry. Also there are the electric wheel chairs… but this is another story.

As we can see, the Tesla is here to change all this. What we have is stylish body of a conventional salon car, closer to today’s trend of four door coupes than simply four door boring three volumes saloon. The very good thing of the Model S is that it tries nothing strange. Even if from the engineers we know that the electric cars due to the lack of internal combustion engine allows for different package of the mechanical components, the Tesla is not an exercise of a strange new car, or to show off the fact that it is the future of the car engineering. What it does very well is a well executed package of a conventional car. The wheels are of perfect size, perfectly well positioned with a long bonnet, specific to powerful cars of today and a dynamic body. On the front fender it even have an aesthetic element that simulates an air outtake like it needs to cool a big engine! How cool is that! The section of the side view has enough tension to it, while being simple and well executed. The car remembers of the actual Jaguar XF from the side, which is a good thing.

On the front end we have a grill that is an inverted trapezoid positioned very low. Again the simplicity of the entire front end gives elegance to the car. And is a nice surprise coming from a company that just yesterday was developing software and nothing of hardware. Much better than anything we have seen from the Asian companies from Japan, Korea and so on… Again the long bonnet gives a purposeful look to the car.

The rear of the Model S is characterised by the same simplicity as the rest of the car. Again we can see a similitude with the Jaguar XF especially looking to the chromed element that crosses all the rear into the rear lights. Again the elegant and strong character of the lines makes it for a very good and well executed car.

The good think about the Model S is that is one of those cars that looking at it, it makes you want to drive the car. Not in a way a Ferrari or Lamborghini does it, and I think that people at Tesla didn’t wanted to achieve that, but instead they managed to design a car that makes you wonder how it will be like to try this new electric car. And no other electric car has managed that before.

So the final question is it a beautiful car? No it is not a beautiful car if you compare it to the great car designs of today and before, but in the same time neither is it boring or ugly. What it is, is a stylish modern saloon car pleasant to look at it, without challenging your eye and sense of perception. Is it a good design? Definitely it is! Why because (even if we repeat ourselves) it shows that the future, even electric it can look attractive and not boring, ugly and scary.