Kevin Rose has some
Tesla Model S imagery up on his Flickr account, including the first unshrouded pictures of the car, along with a rather wild interior shot. The all-electric sedan is styled beautifully -- if rather predictably -- but things start to get weird on the inside. In what looks to be a concept car mockup of the interior, there appears to be a large touchscreen taking the place of the entire center console, wrapped irregularly by dashboard padding. The instruments panel also appears to be a screen, though it could just be a mockup at this stage. Concept cars typically have rather strange and unlikely interiors compared to their tame street-legal counterparts, but even so, if this indeed isn't some sort of cruel Photoshop trickery, we'd say Tesla really outdid itself here. Besides, who needs safe, tactile ways of adjusting climate and audio settings when you're living life this large?
[Via
Autoblog Spanish]
posted Mar 26th 2009 1:25PM
This reminds me of a strectched Jag XF
I was thinking Lexus. Mix between the IS-F and the LF-A.
Looks great.!!!
I need some more details though. I might actually sign up for one of these.!!!
Wow, Kevin Rose has a big f*cking mouth. Dude ought to STFU.
I'm sure Tesla can't be happy about this.
i dunno if it looks like a jag but that is easily the most beautiful car ive seen in a long time. if not ever! not to mention thats its friggen electric!
For that price it just seems like it would take so long to re-coop the cost
well it's designed by fisker coachbuilt and they designed aston martins which were copied by jaguar, i wouldn't get one as i want a scratchable or dentable car without the worries :)
@xcrunk: I thought Tesla wanted to show the Tesla Model S to the public today... maybe they used him to get even more publicity?
Did it get stolen and stripped for parts already? Can you overclock It?
@ Joseph le Brech
Fisker Coachbuild was not responsible for the design of the Tesla sedan. Henrik Fisker was hired to do some initial design work, and when he left Tesla he was sued for allegedly stealing trade secrets. That suit was dismissed in arbitration.
Tesla said Fisker "deliberately performed substandard design work on the Model S", so I don't see why they would retain said substandard design, or why they would allow Fisker to retain any credit for the Tesla S design.
Tesla has said that they decided not to use Fisker's designs for the original "Whitestar" sedan, and that they would start over with a new design. That change is partly responsible for the Tesla S falling months behind schedule.
Elon Musk has taken the responsibility for the design:
"Tesla has scrambled to come up with a new design with some help from Lotus, the maker of the bodies for the initial Tesla Roadster. Mr. Musk said that he was leading the effort.
“‘I’m not really a car designer,” said Mr. Musk, who was one of the founders of PayPal and started SpaceX, a developer of spacecraft. “We’ll see what people think of cars designed by me versus Fisker; it’s the amateur versus the professional.”
aston martin db9
someone got it right
@xcrunk yeah i'm sure they hate all the free publicity
that's what i thought 2, a new g series lexus...
that's what i thought 2, a new g series lexus...
I'll take six!
Wow, I like it so far..... wondering how the touch screen will work out
I'd much rather have real dials that give some feed back but maybe
they've figured something out that I'm not expecting.
Really... I would rather have the voice control.
When I'm driving, I don't want to take my eyes off the road to change the temperature or the radio station. A touch screen requires you to look at it because you can't feel what you're adjusting. Voice control would work, as long as there was some way to sort out real commands from conversation: "It may be -25 degrees today, but in summer I *crank up the air conditioning*... no, you stupid AI, *turn it down*! No, not the radio!" etc.
And I'm sure it would be a custom OS, not Windows as the mock-up appears to be. Certainly not Vista. "Device A64ED at location 6587888234 wants to deploy the air bag - Cancel or Allow?"
"Device A64ED at location 6587888234 wants to deploy the air bag - Cancel or Allow?" FTW!!!
LMAO....
pal :)
I want thought control!
All touch-screens work slower than manual knobs and buttons. This is just silly.
Besides, if you're going to make things so electronic, may as well create something as similar to KITT as possible.
What happens when there's a software crash? Is there a hardware crash as well?
Looks nice, I hope the front is nice too.
not bad :)
Would it have killed them to include a shot of the front?
/facepalm
Haha. Yeah, I was really hoping to find it in the gallery.
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/03/leaked-photo-te.html
i like this a lot
Is that touch screen running XP?
Looks like the blue screen of death. So yeah, probably.
That's not a BSOD. and actually that looks more like Vista or Windows 7 to me, although I'm hoping it's some flavor of Linux.
Where can I put in my order? Yikes!
It reminds me of a Hyundai Sonata. I'll take the Sonata.
its funny that a person called "2fast4u" has no taste in good cars.... pity....
He probably drives a Tiburon and wears a Hyundai logo baseball cap.
I have good taste. But this car is ugly.
Cool, I can watch movies while I drive!
Maybe the government will give GM enough money to buy out Tesla.
If Tesla could mass produce these cars, it would be a great thing.
Great idea! GM will have Tesla shut down in no time at all! Just like they did to their own all-electric cars in the 90's.
Tesla is mass producing these cars. thats why they are only costing $46k. Theres no way they could produce a limited run for that.
Looks nice.
Hokay, so... here's the car... just chillin'... that is a sweet car you might say... roun'
alright, ruling out the ice caps melting, meteors becoming crashed into us, the ozone layer leaving and the sun exploding, we are definitely going to blow ourselves up.
...and the Chevy Volt design team's like "AAH MOTHERLAND!"
the ford's like "Whats going on, EH?"
And the french are like 'but I am le tired!'
(thats what you would even think for real if you see the design of most french cars, but then offcourse in normal french ;-) )
Are those folder icons on the desktop? lol you'd think they would have made a custom OS for it.
considering the state of the rest of the interior... i'm guessing the real interface isn't actually even loaded in the pic. this is something you'd never see in real life i'd imagine.
Is it just me or would anyone else like to see a big brake kit option for the Model S. The discs appear to be a little smaller than I would like.
Mechanical brakes should be merely an emergency backup system on an electric car. Most of your braking force would come from your recovery system.
great - now can you make a car that we can actually afford?
i like the all glass roof
$50,000 seems rather affordable, even if it is priced $10,000 more than the Chevy Volt.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/24/tesla-model-s-priced-just-under-50k-rest-of-car-still-shrouded/
That is certainly going to be part of Tesla's goal in the future. However, they are basing their current strategy around higher margin vehicles and working their way down. I personally think that at around $50,000 dollars this car could give some serious competition to similar sized models from Audi, BMW, Lexus and Merc if it is comfortable to drive and offers good performance. The gas mileage, green factor and "It" factor will certainly play a role as well.
Awesome
We think this will be LESS expensive than the crazy race cars they made their name with, right? Wasn't that the plan?
dang this car is sexy
Is that the Jag XF? Still looks sexy as hell, lovin the glass roof!
Absolutely beautiful.
Am I the only one that thinks that screen is just a really bad photoshop job?
I'lll second those photoshop shenanigans, look at the upper right blue corner which just seems to hover over what would be the "bezel" of the screen.
Telsa will either make it big because of its incredible innovation or else crash and burn because of taking too many risks and screw up in their corporate governance. I hope its the former.
The best (and one of the few good) looking American car I've ever seen.
Sexy
VAG-COM on the display in the middle and i'll take it :)
You guys are usually sharper than you seem here. The "touchscreen" is most likely something laid in because they haven't figured out what to put there yet or whatever it is is out temporarily.
I think the dash itself may be real, but remember Tesla comes out of someone from the computer industry. The console may simply be a touch screen for testing different instrument layouts. Basically a usability test rig for different button configurations and so on. Given the entire interior is apparently a work in progress, that would seem a logical interpretation.
Looks like Tesla's crew are really impressed by British cars (there's nothing wrong with that). Roadster was based on Lotus Elise, now there are clear similarities between Model S and Jag XF.
And the door handles are strangely reminiscent of Aston Martins
Very attractive car. Looks and price wise, it'll compete with Audi/Lexus/BMW/Mercedes.
Give me!!!!
It does look quite like a stretched jag especially the way the windows are.
What i wonder is if this is an electric car running on batteries why waste all the energy on lcd screens when u could have normal non-power hogging dials that don't have to be lit up constantly. Of course it looks better with screens, just doing some logical thinking there...
I would hazard a guess, that the screen in the the center console is in fact real. From the shot you can tell that the center stack hasn't been completed. I imagine the use of a touch screen, set to use horizontally would be an ideal way to have several ways to show information, and for user interface.
Imagine that Tesla has 3 windows that show on the screen. One for radio, one for climate control and finally a larger one used for navagation/GPS.
Build a nice looking insert to go into the huge void visible in the picture of the center stack, with 3 openings to view the 3 windows Tesla has displayed. The ones controlling climate and radio stay static, while the nav/gps can switch to show TV/DVD, backup cam, (looks like it may need it) vehicle diagnostics, power consumption etc, etc.
The nasty looking screen will be gone, and you're left with 3 touch panels done with only one computer, and no real fancy programming, instead of 3 separate computers controlling 3 separate control clusters. I bet he cost saving for that are huge too.
There's nothing like seeing the glow of a huge ass screen on the driver of a car coming at you on the other side of the road. I guess it's no different than people who put neon inside their car. I prefer a less face lighting/less distracting dashboard.
@Andir3.0
"Build a nice looking insert to go into the huge void"
You would only see the areas left open to view the control areas. Not the whole "huge ass" screen.
As for brightness/visibility, at night it would be a simple to have a dimmer feature... like they already do on so many in car audio/av/nav/gps screens???
If this is an EV, why would u put such a big screen in the car? Wouldn't that consume even more power?
The exterior is downright beautiful, but I'd definitely opt for a more buttony interior.
That is a pretty good looking car, although I was hoping to see more continuity from the line of the Tesla Roadster. Perhaps closely following the lines of the Evora. This is a good start tho.
For those interested, the unveiling of the Tesla S can be seen @ 3:00Pm ET here: http://www.leftlanenews.com/tesla-model-s-live.html
Okay that live stream failed miserably, but the front of the car can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3MuZkPiWNw
Want.
What a great looking car! Too bad the Chevy Volt designers couldn't have come up with something that looks this good.
Thumbs up!
Reminds me of the Audi A5. Particularly in profile. Very nice.
Chevy volt design team will show up on failblog shortly.
I vote they add this to the Engadget's recession antidote giveaway.
Looks like a cross between the Jaguar XF, and the new Mazda 6. In other words, looks great.
F'ing gorgeous!
If you look through the window of the second picture, it looks like the dash layout is different than the shot with the photo-shopped screen.
I bet all that glass will require quite an abundance of energy hungry air conditioning.
I wonder if it is or could be made to be switchable glass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass
Even slight tinting for reflectance of radiant light heat will help tremendously. Most manufacturers put up to 5% tint on most cars today and you don't notice it unless you have polarized sunglasses.
Nice.
its nice,BUT A TOTAL DESIGN RIPOFF OF THE NEW JAGUAR XK .TAKE A LOOK-http://www.jaguarusa.com/us/en/xk/gallery/photography.htm
Great looking car! I would definitely think about buying one of these, but ONLY if there is an option for old fashioned manual controls instead of the touch screen.
AND THE JAGUAR XF
Looks sick, I like.
If only I could afford it...
Can we have the homeaddress of the guy who decided to release pictures of the thing in a grey paintjob? We, the angry crowd, want to drag him out onto the street and lynch him, thanks.
Huh? it was the CEO of GM? And he lives on Goldmountain #1, and the streets are privately owned? Oh I see.
Perhaps I can hold out and instead of getting a 2010 3 series, I'll get one of these in 2011 or 2012...
Aesthetically pleasing AND good for the environment. I'll take one in silver please. or white. that would be just dandy as well.
It runs on XP.
YYYYEEAAAAAHHHHHHHH
jag? nah, looks more like the European Ford Mondeo:
http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/Mondeo/Exteriordesign
also sold with a slightly different shape as a Mazda.
the ford's like "Whats going on, EH?"