April 01, 2016

New Tesla Design Makes It the Apple of Autos

Tesla is the high-end electric car company, headed by an eccentric and high-profile CEO, that makes the incredible electric car that so many want but so few can afford. This has earned them the moniker "the Apple of Automobiles".
Tesla made big news today for revealing the design of their Model 3, which is still in production, but will start at $35,000. In just a day, 115,000 people have reserved their car, all based on the dramatic release of this one photo. Just take a look at the design photo they released, and you can see what has so many people excited:

Tesla Model 3
I am excited about this.
The single photo offers a limited scope of what's in store for the newest electric car, but a couple things revealed here have me thrilled. Immediately most controversial I suspect would be the two discreet passenger compartments. The world of tech and social sciences both have skyrocketed into the pursuit of specialization, so the inevitable result is division between passengers and operators. Several may find this off-putting, but I have two kids, and it strikes me as genius.

You can also notice Jobsesque attention to detail, such as the step ladder and the doubled headlights. Many have already been speculating about the extra headlights. What could they be for? Extra visibility. Some are suggesting that the second pair of headlights could be designed to shift the light spectrum away from intense blue light after 10pm.
The company is not saying much more, other than the availability of a few luxury and tech-related add-on options. The most intriguing the description of a deck, that then became associated with this (leaked?) picture.

They are calling an "eight track deck". I assume it is some sort of audio (bluetooth?) interface that allows you to connect up to eight iOS devices at once. At the press release, a design engineer Max Campbell was very enthusiastic about this technology.
Here's my speculation: could this new car, along with this add-on, be some type of coordination between Tesla and Apple into the new frontier of self-driving cars? Maybe you set up the directions on your phone, and then just plug it into the deck and the car takes over from there?  One can dream.

Without much revealed, we'll have to wait for more info, though that's not preventing auto and tech pundits alike from already drawing their own conclusions.
Technology aficionado John Gruber tweeted this about the upcoming car: "I think it has a classic, almost Homeric quality."

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