Highland Details Confirmed
Tesla’s secretive Model 3 design refresh - codenamed Project Highland - got some more scrutiny this last week, when a supposedly leaked image of one of the new vehicles was posted to the r/Teslamotors reddit page.
The post from April 12th shows a mostly uncovered Tesla vehicle, which - aside from its new front end - definitely looks like a Model 3. That front area has definitely been changed though, a lot of the lines have been smoothed out, leading to a thinner bumper and more Model S-style headlights.
And while the origin of this image isn’t known, Teslascope - a site that gathers and displays useful data for Tesla users - stepped in to confirm that the photo was likely real. On the same day the image was posted to Reddit, Teslascope posted to their Twitter that they believed the shot was genuine due to a conversation the company had back in February with a Tesla employee, and another conversation with a company insider at the time of the Investor Day event on March 1st.
The February conversation references that the headlights would be changing. “More vette less porsche” reads the released text - referring to the sleek headlights on the most recent run of the Chevrolet Corvette sports car .
And while this text lines up with what the leaked image shows - it’s the second conversation on March 1st that’s more interesting.
On April 14th Teslascope was given permission to post this conversation - likely in response to the leak. It confirms that the changes to the front end are as they appear - a smoothing of the bumper around the edges and Model-S style headlights.
But the conversation also confirms that Tesla is moving away from in-house seats which is a surprising move for a company that has been working to bring as much of the production loop in-house as possible for years now. At the Investor Day event, Elon even confirmed that there is a secret accessory-creation team working on peripherals for the Cybertruck, rather than getting an outside company to make them.
But for whatever reason, it seems like Tesla is swapping out the seats in the Model 3 to ones made by another company. No word yet as to why - if we’ll ever get word - but it’s a possibility that the company has decided to focus production effort elsewhere.
We know from previous leaks that Tesla is moving towards simplifying the design of the Model 3, with specific focus on the complexity of the interior - which might point to changes like the seats, and the removal of the wood trim in favour of cloth features - but also rumoured that changes were coming to features like the Infotainment display in the dash, and updates to the camera and sensor suites.
Conversations like the January 15th podcast interview with Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen - and his presentation at the March 1st Investor Day Event - paint the picture of a company that is about to make a major overhaul of their older designs to make more efficient use of parts, and new production methods.
The Investor Day presentation made specific mention of the hellish slog that was the production development cycle of the Model 3 - including a basic walkthrough of their ideas about a new way to manufacture their sedan that improves efficiency.
And there are definitely other factors here too - streamlining the process and shaving costs from the production side will definitely help keep any new Model 3 under the price points needed to qualify for any new government incentive programs offered by America’s new Inflation Reduction Act.
Tesla has been laser focused on hitting those targets, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that Project Highland - and the Model Y refresh Project Juniper - were both planned to take advantage of the current political climate.
Regardless of their reasons, that leaked picture shows that the new Model 3 is pretty far along in its beta process - at least for the exterior. It also solves the mystery of what was under the wraps of those Model 3’s we’ve been seeing in the wild these last couple of months.