Interview reveals New Roadster details!
Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen sat down for an interview with Ryan McCaffrey - host of the Ride the Lightning Tesla podcast - on January 15th. The conversation was fairly focused on the new Cybertruck, and Tesla’s design strategy - but swerved off towards other products after that, with McCaffrey making mention of the next gen Tesla Roadster project - a prototype of which was apparently sitting right next to the two as they talked.
On this project, Franz was more tight-lipped - but while he said he couldn’t give away any secrets just yet, he did mention that if you’re wondering about the capabilities, you should be thinking of what a leap forward the Model S Plaid was, and extrapolate forwards.
The Model S Plaid is one of the fastest vehicles Tesla has ever produced - with a top speed of around 200 mph and 1020 hp. Saying that the new roadster will be a leap even over that is quite the boast.
But Franz said that while he’s working fairly regularly on the Roadster, it’s just not a priority for the company right now. Tesla is focusing on mass production of more accessible vehicles in their push to electrify the automotive industry - and making a new, luxury sports car just isn’t at the top of the list for design work right now.
Despite that, Franz did say that he and his team do work on the Model S more or less constantly. He specifically mentioned that his work lately has been with the UI of the vehicle’s dashboard info-tainment system, but he also touched on the manufacturability of the vehicle - something that built into Franz’s thoughts on Tesla’s design philosophy.
Like the other vehicles in Tesla’s active lineup, the big priority appears to be streamlining the manufacturing process - Franz made specific mention of a focus on both manufacturability of Tesla’s vehicles - likely referring to making vehicles more parts efficient among other things - but also a focus on lowering the time it takes for a vehicle to go from design to production.
So it may be a little bit before we get another chance to hear anything about the new Tesla Roadster, but it’s a good bet when we do it’ll be in line with the new production techniques the company has been working so hard on lately.