About 12 years ago, not long after Tesla began delivering the Model S, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen started to think about what an autonomous vehicle might look like.
Von Holzhausen played a central role at Tesla leading the design team on the Model 3 and Model Y, as well as the Tesla Semi. But as von Holzhausen told TechCrunch in an interview on the sidelines of the UP.Summit this month, in the background he had already started doing the design work for a robotaxi in his head.
“I just think that it felt inevitable we would get there,” he said, explaining why he started thinking about it so early.
Now more than a decade later, Tesla is about to reveal a robotaxi at an October 10 event in Los Angeles. It’s not clear if it will simply be a concept version, a more full-fledged prototype, or something else. And it follows years of unmet promises from CEO Elon Musk about when Tesla would show off such a vehicle or make the underlying technology work without requiring human supervision.
Von Holzhausen didn’t share specifics of what Tesla will show except to say it would be “intriguing,” “interesting,” and “fun.” He did say the company’s existing portfolio of vehicles laid the foundation of what’s to come.
“In a strange sort of way, we’ve been working our way — in a very public way — to what an autonomous future will look like,” he said. “So you see the big interface that we have, the way it’s configurable and upgradable, and we bring a variety of entertainment pieces to it, and some humor as well. And I think that will continue to evolve.”
Von Holzhausen said the idea of introducing technology to the customer through design has been a continuous thread in Tesla’s history.
“The self-presenting door handle in the early days — that was like a handshake with technology,” he recalled. “It was getting us comfortable with the vehicle becoming part of our daily lives.”
Von Holzhausen is hopeful and ready for a future where autonomous driving is widely accessible.
“I desperately don’t want my kids to have to worry about getting a driver’s license, or driving at all,” he said.
The designer equated this current era to the disruptive transition from horse and buggy to automobile — a comparison his boss has made many times over the years.
“There was one way of getting around forever and everybody was accustomed to it — you had to do it,” he said. “Nobody talks about the bad side of that situation,” he said, noting how horses had to be housed, fed, and cleaned up after.
“And people tolerated that,” he said. “So we’re kind of in a similar situation where we’re just tolerating what we know.”
“I think the opportunity for a radical change to something that maybe seems scary, and will release a little bit of control, is the challenge. But it’s also the opportunity,” he said. “And that opportunity for me as a designer I think is really great because now we have the ability to shape how people use their time, what their lives can be like, how they can get to places where they wouldn’t have gone before, and what their experiences can be like.”