Tesla Model 3 at the top of sales
Everyone seemed surprised to learn that an electric, expensive, beautiful and moreover American sedan had topped sales in Europe in September with nearly 24,600 cars surpassing the Renault Clio and Dacia Sandero that suddenly seemed to belong to another era. The Tesla Model 3 is not cheap (more than 40,000 euros), it is not an SUV and on the contrary exalts the sportiness and elegance of traditional sedans, its style does not resort to any baroque and convoluted effect. At the green light, the Tesla starts as quickly as discreetly without deafening the passer-by with a provocative and obsolete roar.
Simple, logical and fluid lines
In short, the Tesla Model 3 does not tick any box of the specifications that continues to impose the majority of manufacturers in a pathetic one-upmanship. For designers, Tesla should be a textbook case and a challenge. While all designers compete with sleeve effects, stylists invent increasingly kitsch string lights, cut their bodies with pleats and destructure volumes, the Tesla Model 3 displays simple, logical, fluid lines. It does not need a grille so we do not stick a fake one on it. Its surfaces are smooth as a pebble. The sides are beautifully carved, just enough to capture the nuances and lights. Not a scarf, not a break, no untimely fold, no scarification as on these achievements of these designers who duplicate and repeat forgetting the subtleties. The profile of the Tesla is slender, low, spinning naturally. Around the spotlights, no rhinestones or faceted balls as has become the rule among competitors.
Tesla can be criticized for not renewing itself from one model to another. That’s right, the Model 3 takes the timeless vocabulary of the Model S which was unveiled in March 2009 after the experience of the marginal Roadster, released between 2008 and 2012 in 2,500 units.
The Palo Alto firm then arrived with a one hundred percent electric car in the segment of large “premium” road cars. Mercedes-Benz (E-Class and S-Class), Audi (e-tron GT) and Porsche (Taycan) are now trying to catch up.
To give shape to his first real creation, Elon Musk had called on a designer with classic taste. In February 2005, he hired Franz von Holzhausen, who was then thirty-seven years old and had trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He had worked in the Californian studio of Volkswagen (1992-2000), then at GM, still in California, (from 2000 to 2005) for which he signed the beautiful Solstice project for Pontiac. Finally, from February 2005 to August 2008, Franz von Holzhausen worked for Mazda without leaving the shores of the Pacific.
The Model 3 arrived in the spring of 2016 with its wise and consensual style whose message spoke only of aesthetics and beauty. What a revolution in a world of aggressiveness and preciousness. For charity, we will not mention the multitude of manufacturers who have forgotten this very simple. We wouldn’t want to get angry with Toyota, BMW, DS, Hyundai, Peugeot and many others.