Tesla Roadster
The new Tesla Roadster was presented recently at the ICSID/IDSA World Design Congress : Connecting ‘07 in San Francisco. It was interesting to see the development process by the founder of the company and the lead designer, and it was also interesting to see that it received an IDEA Gold Award 2007.
The Tesla Roadster is a sports car with an electric engine. Nice effort and courage by the developers, I have to say, for being able to make it happen. And while I recognize the initiative of making a “green” sports car, I need to comment a couple of things since I have worked for a while in the transportation world and in some occasions in the development of electric vehicles.
I think the design team completely missed the opportunity to do something innovative. With such a clear differentiation factor from other sports cars (by nature), that they could have taken a huge advantage to make a very successful design story, they ended up making a “me too” version. Something that wants to be a classic sports car, but it is not. Instead of looking forward, it references to the past (poor design story).
Instead of creating a revolutionary design they made a car that looks just like any other sports car out there. And instead of creating a physical form that represents the cultural values that go along with an electric car (for being forward thinking, progressive and paradigm-changing), they made it look just like a muscle car that shows the same values of those who drive a Ferrari and burn as much rubber (which is not green at all) as gasoline.
Also, is it really green? They talked about the electric engine which is a great step, but what about the materials, the paint, the tires, the batteries, etc.? Is there a green story behind the rest of the product or just on the propulsion system?
I’m curious to know what was the criteria of the IDEA Awards Jury this year to give this project a Gold Award. I think it deserves some recognition, for sure, but i think it is not an innovative design with the merit of a Gold Award.
Post a comment