Tesla is renowned for its advanced electrical installations. This is a tribute to their marvellous mechanical design.
It is s tribute to the Tesla Model S that twelve years after its pioneering introduction, it remains on sale and relevant. Not a bad achievement for what was still pretty much a start-up company in 2012.
We absolutely love the mechanical design of the Model S. This runs from the overall packaging right down to the smallest detail.
The outline of the car was very successful in looking like a mainstream executive car. Clearly buyers at this price point prefer conservative rather than whacky.
The skateboard design shown above illustrates how the battery pack was made low, wide and long. This brings many benefits; putting all that weight close to the road, and spread between the axles, lowers the centre of gravity and gives optimal handling for the weight involved. Remarkably, the shallow depth of the battery pack means that for users of the car, it disappears into the depth of the sills – when sat in the vehicle, people really will not know it is there under their feet.
For us, it is the detail design of the suspension which really gets our juices flowing. Just look at those upper links. I want one to hang on the wall in my living room, it is so beautiful. Yep, I’m not married. How on earth did you guess?
Likewise, the rear subframe is a beautiful design of superformed aluminium. Beautiful, strong and lightweight!
Finally, who could failed to love the pop-out door handles…. Regular items nowadays, but sleek and cutting edge twelve years ago!
So that is why we love the mechanical design of the Tesla Model S….. battery pack, suspension links, sub-frames and door handles
Next time we will talk about the multiple cooling circuits. Who knew electric cars could be this much fun!