"Love it or hate it, it's a conversation starter": Tesla's Chief Designer says Cybertruck is good for the brand

Record ID: 1758190

  • Title: "Love it or hate it, it's a conversation starter": Tesla's Chief Designer says Cybertruck is good for the brand
  • Date: 22nd December 2023
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 21, 2023)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) TESLA CHIEF DESIGNER, FRANZ VON HOLZHAUSEN, SAYING: "There's an impression that, you know, trucks should be tough. And we wanted to convey with the idea that in most trucks - and I won't say all - but most trucks, the kind of, actually the most delicate part of the vehicle is the paint
  • Embargoed: 5th January 2024 05:25
  • Keywords: CYBERTRUCK FRANZ VON HOLZHAUSEN TESLA
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • City: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Economic Events,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA003772522122023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The angular, polarizing design of the Cybertruck will help boost the Tesla brand, the electric vehicle maker's chief designer said on Thursday (December 21).
    "Love it or hate it, it's a conversation starter, and it gets people talking about the brand," Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen said at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which is adding Cybertruck models to a Tesla exhibit.
    The long-delayed Cybertruck starts at a price of $60,990, over 50% more than what CEO Elon Musk had touted in 2019, with a smaller range than originally promised.
    Von Holzhausen says Musk is very hands-on with all Tesla products.
    "He's very bold on the design level and incredibly involved on the engineering level, the manufacturing level, the overall kind of running of the business level."
    But it is drawing interest from people who have never owned a truck, with some potential owners queuing up for it at some Tesla showrooms, von Holzhausen said.
    "We're bringing people into the market that never would have owned a truck before," von Holzhausen said. "And so I don't think it's an experiment."
    The stainless-steel clad truck is all angles, in part because a traditional press can't bend the steel into curves.
    The Lamborghini Countach, also an aggressively angular car, had also inspired the design, as had Lockheed's F-117 Stealth Fighter jet, von Holzhausen said.
    "It looks like it shouldn't do what it does, yet, intelligent engineers figured it out," he said of the F-117.
    The Tesla design studio was also inspired by the car-turned-submarine in the 1977 James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me," which Musk bought.
    The Cybertruck's launch has not been without glitches.
    In 2019, von Holzhausen threw a metal ball at the truck during at its launch event, shattering two of its fortified glass windows. At another an event last month where the first trucks were delivered, he lobbed a baseball at the windows without any damage.
    "There's an impression that, you know, trucks should be tough. And we wanted to convey with the idea that that in in most trucks and I won't say all but most trucks, the kind of actually the most delicate part of the of the vehicle is the paint and it's on the outside. And so we wanted to flip the script and say, let's put the toughness on the outside so it can take any kind of abuse."
    (Production: Alan Devall, Cath Turner, Nichola Groom)
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