A snap of what is believed to be Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk’s own personal vehicle has revealed the first peek at his new favourite car colour: deep crimson.
Tesla’s range of electric vehicles are currently available in only five colours: pearl white, black, dark silver metallic, blue metallic and red multi-coat.
However, more colours are planned, with Musk revealing in April that the new Berlin Gigafactory (Giga Berlin) would have what he calls the “world’s most advanced paint shop, with more layers of stunning colors that subtly change with curvature.”
Sounds fancy, and now thanks to Tesla podcaster Ryan McCaffrey, we have a chance to see deep crimson, which last Monday Musk said on Twitter is his favourite.
The image, which was used with permission by McCaffrey, shows a sublime dark reddish purple Model S that Musk confirmed is a “prototype of the colour”.
It’s a prototype of the color
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2020
While many Tesla owners choose to “wrap” their vehicles using vinyl products to achieve anything from matte black to hypercolour rainbows, the fact that Tesla is working on a wider range of colours has been warmly welcomed by the Tesla community.
According to Musk, the wider range of colours (none of which have been named except for the deep crimson) will eventually be available for vehicles made at Tesla’s Fremont and Shanghai factories. Musk said in April that retrofits to paint shops are difficult so these will be “upgraded over time”.
The new range of colours from Berlin’s paint shop will not be available for the upcoming Cybertruck, however, which was first revealed in November 2019 made out of 30x cold-rolled steel and which will be built at a new electric vehicle factory in Austin, Texas for a late 2021 US release.
However, heat treatments might be able to be applied to the Cybertruck instead to achieve some pretty neat effects, which will now apprently be made from a new unconfirmed alloy that Musk hinted at in a response to a post about the new SpaceX Starship prototype.
This hint may have prompted Tesla podcaster “Viv” to ask Musk via Twitter if, “Some types of steel change color when tempered, does that apply to cold-rolled stainless too? Would look pretty sick/unique if Cybertruck could be torched using not-a-flamethrower …”
Musk replied a simple, “Yes.”
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 26, 2020
It was not clear if Musk meant Tesla will apply treatments to the Cybertruck before purchase or if it would be left up to buyers to arrange to have their own treatments applied, but we couldn’t resist the chance to mock up what colours we’d like to see the Cybertruck in.
Nevertheless, it appears that in the next few years we may see some very interesting Tesla vehicles out there on roads – once the new Cybertruck and vehicles made from upgraded paint shops finally get here.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.