Tesla Model S official shots unofficially unveiled

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]

Tesla Model S official shots unofficially unveiled

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:31PM]

This reminds me of a strectched Jag XF

[Bkm72 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:46PM]

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.!!!

[xCrunk Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:57PM]

Wow, Kevin Rose has a big f*cking mouth. Dude ought to STFU.

I'm sure Tesla can't be happy about this.

[spasewalkr Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:05PM]

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!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:12PM]

For that price it just seems like it would take so long to re-coop the cost

[joebrech Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:20PM]

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 :)

[kadajawi Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:27PM]

@xcrunk: I thought Tesla wanted to show the Tesla Model S to the public today... maybe they used him to get even more publicity?

[OneLove Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:32PM]

Did it get stolen and stripped for parts already? Can you overclock It?

[letstakeawalk Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:39PM]

@ 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.”

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 5:45PM]

aston martin db9

someone got it right

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 7:19PM]

@xcrunk yeah i'm sure they hate all the free publicity

[morissen3k8 Posted Mar 27th 2009 12:40AM]

that's what i thought 2, a new g series lexus...

[morissen3k8 Posted Mar 27th 2009 12:41AM]

that's what i thought 2, a new g series lexus...

[MatthewT Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:32PM]

I'll take six!

[exboy99 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:32PM]

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.

[Templarian Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:35PM]

Really... I would rather have the voice control.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:35PM]

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?"

[coolpal Posted Mar 26th 2009 10:06PM]

"Device A64ED at location 6587888234 wants to deploy the air bag - Cancel or Allow?" FTW!!!
LMAO....

pal :)

[wjousts Posted Mar 26th 2009 3:33PM]

I want thought control!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 6:24PM]

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?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:37PM]

Looks nice, I hope the front is nice too.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:35PM]

not bad :)

[skyshock21 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:36PM]

Would it have killed them to include a shot of the front?
/facepalm

[dg988 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:48PM]

Haha. Yeah, I was really hoping to find it in the gallery.

[a non emous Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:50PM]

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/03/leaked-photo-te.html

[OriginalJosh Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:35PM]

i like this a lot

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:36PM]

Is that touch screen running XP?

[MikeUK Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:30PM]

Looks like the blue screen of death. So yeah, probably.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:56PM]

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.

[rctoon Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:38PM]

Where can I put in my order? Yikes!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:40PM]

It reminds me of a Hyundai Sonata. I'll take the Sonata.

[KR Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:19PM]

its funny that a person called "2fast4u" has no taste in good cars.... pity....

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:28PM]

He probably drives a Tiburon and wears a Hyundai logo baseball cap.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:46PM]

I have good taste. But this car is ugly.

[loosescrew Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:40PM]

Cool, I can watch movies while I drive!

[rcappo Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:43PM]

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.

[dg988 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:49PM]

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.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 4:58PM]

Tesla is mass producing these cars. thats why they are only costing $46k. Theres no way they could produce a limited run for that.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:42PM]

Looks nice.

[Bourne Perfection Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:44PM]

Hokay, so... here's the car... just chillin'... that is a sweet car you might say... roun'

[nelagster Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:52PM]

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.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:21PM]

...and the Chevy Volt design team's like "AAH MOTHERLAND!"

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 6:45PM]

the ford's like "Whats going on, EH?"

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 27th 2009 3:50AM]

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 ;-) )

[bigcow05 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:46PM]

Are those folder icons on the desktop? lol you'd think they would have made a custom OS for it.

[x23 Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:50PM]

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.

[nathands Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:49PM]

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.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:16PM]

Mechanical brakes should be merely an emergency backup system on an electric car. Most of your braking force would come from your recovery system.

[bradrel Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:49PM]

great - now can you make a car that we can actually afford?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2009 1:51PM]

i like the all glass roof