How One Designer Saved Tesla From Bankruptcy TWICE

Big shout out to Ronnie Parsons for supporting this video :)

0:00-0:45 Who is Franz?
0:46-1:50 Tesla About to Go Bankrupt
1:51-3:48 Franz' design plan
3:49-5:18 Making electric cars beautiful
5:19-6:53 Tesla's minimalism
6:54-9:11 Tesla's branding
9:12-10:15 Onshape
10:16-11:40 Going Bankrupt (again)
11:41-14:11 Creating a Design Icon
14:12-16:52 Cybertruck weirdness
16:53 Tesla is the ONLY successful new American car company

BIG shout out to the following people:
-Raffi Minasian for car design input and confirming my original thoughts on the design as well as expanding on them.
-Aristotelis Kostopolous for helping with structuring the flow of the story and research

All content directed by John Mauriello. John Mauriello has been working professionally as an industrial designer since 2010. He is an Adjunct Professor of industrial design at California College of the Arts.

[shilpvaishnav]

I love Tesla, and am a designer myself -- but I'm not sure I caught the part where Tesla was saved from bankruptcy by design, specifically. You could probably make a similar argument for the engineering innovations increasing their desirability (and therefore sales), for example with the crazy 0-60 times and the visceral experience of that acceleration. Franz is definitely a legend for his work on Tesla though, and I can't deny that the design was unique and attractive enough to have a major role in their success.

[stefanvladescu]

I'm glad that you pointed out the need to have tactile buttons in the interior. While the design of the monolithic screen is striking, it takes your attention off the road. Even in cars that have capacitive buttons i sometimes struggle to find them while i'm having to look out for other drivers, or pedestrians on the road. I believe that electric cars are the future, but i will not be driving any of them that by design force me to drive unsafely

[sleeth]

I am on Tesla's infrastructure dev design team and while having our design team interface closely with the vehicle and product design teams can be a challenge, it also means we have a lot more control over the end user perception, not just with the car, but with the store, the merch, the service centers, and the superchargers.

Another side note: to my knowledge, David Imai was the leading manager for the Cybertruck, before it was ever brought to Franz or even Elon for review/approval.

[dirediredude]

Great video. I have very mixed feelings about Telsa as do I think a lot of designers. I think Tesla's largely have a nice silhouette to their cars but overall I think are pretty uninspiring designs. The rear end's especially fade into mid price sedan rental car territory very quickly.

But I will say I really respect their new approach to the automotive industry as a whole. After watching Sandy's series on the breakdown of these cars construction, I think one of the biggest contributions to the automotive world they have had is their approach to production and mid cycle hardware changes. No other companies would dream of doing that because it cuts directly into the bottom line, but with Telsa, they are assuring their new customers continually get the best possible version of a vehicle. I think that's really smart approach and wish other manufactures would also adapt something similar. Doing away with the horribly archaic dealership platform that other brands use is also a step in the right direction I think. Clearly it comes with it's own set of problems but I think it was a welcome change.

Other things you mentioned like their "end to end" design are all very well thought as well. Of course they are single handedly to blame for the taping of ipads to dashboards everywhere which as a designer hurts my soul every time I see it haha but hey, like you said, they're just designing for the current generation so I understand the inspiration.

Tesla is a breath of fresh air which at the end of the day is their biggest contribution. Time will tell if that head start they had in tech and production will be sustainable because every major automaker is now designing and releasing very similar products. If they have to rely on flamethrowers and Elon dropping f bombs to stay relevant I think Hans might be working for another automaker in 10 years. We shall see.

[LionheartLivin]

Although I could not disagree more with your view on the CT, your analysis and breakdown of design for S and 3 was extremely interesting and engaging. THANK YOU!!!;)

[ghost]

Love the breakdown, but I kind of disagree about how much the envelope was pushed, especially with the original Model S. Yes it was a nice design, but nothing revolutionary. Just an amalgamation of other beautiful vehicles.

[JackoBanon]

The Model 3 is 5 years old already and still looks fresh and futuristic.

[sonicliberation]

A brilliant designer of timeless designs.

[Wooster]

Looking forward to seeing how the design evolves for the 3 and Y.

[j.d]

The polestar is the true masterpiece of a design.

[georgiaguardian]

I always love to listen to experts explaining car design philosophies and your idea is the best so far on Tesla design!

[ruzzelladrian]

The Range Rover Velar is one of the best examples of minimalism but keeping the essence of the design. The Velar is the future of crossover SUV design.

[AlanW]

6:22 those are LIDAR cameras, the ultrasonic sensors are more like the parking sensors on a mid 2000s BMW. They blend into the body work quite well. At 7:36 you see the sensors at either side of the license plate as well as below the headlight. They look like every other manufacturer's sensors from here.

[SkyRiver]

No doubt you've heard the design philosophy "form follows function", well in the cybertruck Form Follows manufacturing Functionality: how it looks is determined by how it's made, and how it's made is determined by why it's being made -- ONe tRucK To Rule Them All!

[MoritzDeininger]

Actually, the reason Teslas dont have ugly Sensors all around is because they mailnly rely on "normal" cameras for scanning their surroundings. Tesla is really good at software to get the most information out of it, but a lot of people say this can never be as good (and therefore as safe) as using Lidars with real depth-information. I think if Tesla had Lidars too, we would see a very different design approach - would be interesting to see!

[Tomaz]

This is by far my favorite Design channel on youtube! Great work, thank you sir!

[renepouliot]

The engineering behind the cyber truck was pushed to the extreme in terms of efficiency. No paint required, no rust, no scratches reduced production line etc.. I love it

[voluntaryist]

I was ready to buy a Model 3, 2019, when I heard Aptera was back. I ordered two. Now, there is the ultimate design!

[atimko]

I rented a Tesla model 3 for 5 days and initially it was a little weird getting used to the screen; however what I realized was all the "quick adjust" buttons you really need are on the steering wheel and the rest show up on the screen and it was very relaxing and calming not having a bunch of buttons, knobs & switches on the dashboard. Never got road rage.

[Designotherwise]

This is such a high quality video! It’s so interesting to listen to you break down all these different aspects of the design and strategy tesla has implemented to avoid bankruptcy.
This kind of explination is one of the main reasons I love design