Tesla's design chief tips 'flying' Roadster 2 release, says Apple products no longer an inspiration

Tesla's Chief of Design Franz von Holzhausen sat down for an interview and talked about his feelings about Apple's direction, as well as finally disclosed some more information on the upcoming second Tesla Roadster generation. Back in 2017, when Elon Musk hinted for the first time that Tesla is working on the next Roadster, a follow-up to the original that was Tesla's first commercially available EV, he promised the sports car for 2020. Fast forward to 2022, and the Tesla Roadster 2 is finally being given some more air time. According to Tesla's design chief, it will be a "flying" little car:

We are working on the Roadster. I wish we were working faster, but I also wanted to say that, in the time we have been developing it, we have also been learning a lot. Plaid is a great learning platform. All those experiences will, you know, make their way back into a much better Roadster than had we launched right after we debuted it... So yeah, continuous improvements on that. It will be an amazing, exciting flying machine with the SpaceX package.

Those who plunked on a Roadster 2 reservation deposit when Tesla announced the racer will now have to wait at least until 2023 to gets its supposed 1.9s 0-60MPH acceleration speed and impressive 600-mile range on a charge. Given what Tesla achieved with the Plaid models, such acceleration is not hard to fathom, yet the Tesla Roadster 2 price, range, and ultimate release date probably won't be known before next year at the earliest.

As for Apple devices, and in extension its electric vehicle Titan project, Tesla's design boss just quipped that he is not a fan of the direction the team from Cupertino is taking with innovation, at least from a design aesthetics point of view:

The sad part about Apple products now is like there’s nothing to look forward to. I feel like it’s just a continuation. It’s just kind of a slight refinement on the same thing, so inspirationally, it’s been hard to get super motivated by what they’re doing.

Apple has been marred by quite a lot of staff churn around its Project Titan EV undertaking, with many executives spending only a short amount of time working on the Apple Car prospects before they leave for greener pastures. The Apple Car project is said to continue, though, and the iPhone-maker is reportedly still probing various design concepts and legacy car or battery makers to form a partnership over with. Tesla is, apparently, nonplussed about the Apple Car potential to disrupt the industry it single-handedly helped to create, according to the U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and still maintains a huge lead in.

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