Unfortunately not...

Looks like Motor Trend published their article about their photo visit of the Model 3 at the Gigafactory. They had published a blog earlier with some pics, but it looks like they saved the better photos for the article:

http://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla...otos-analysis/

It's really weird to see a car without a front grille.

Its not like this is the first car ever made without a front grille.

But then again, perhaps I'm warming up to it a bit more since I grew up with my dad driving cars without front grilles. His daily driver was one of these:
http://www.2040-cars.com/_content/ca...323792/001.jpg

But those VWs and other mid/rear engined cars didn't have front ends look like they were meant to be that way rather than the 3 looking like it has a grille that covered or smoothed over like Neo's mouth.


http://fossforce.com/wp-content/uplo...o-no-mouth.jpg

Tesla Model ≡ Thread
 

Good point. In fact most rear and md engine cars have very clean, attractive front ends. The Tesla non-grill grill makes no sense.

I'm also tired of reading wide-eyed articles in the press about how the tesla's front end looks the way it does because there's "no engine there!!"...as if it's a new thing.

I love tesla but I find it a bit nauseating when they are given credit for innovating stuff that's been around for years. Pretty sure they could convince people that they invented disc brakes if they wanted to.

That's worked pretty well for Apple for a long time. ;)

But like Apple, they have thus far executed on older ideas better than anyone else to a point it feels new.

They just blew it on the 3's front end. I'll give him a pass on the anonmobileness of the rest of it in this context, but the front draws a whole picture of horrid.

The stylists they talked to in the MT piece have an interesting perspective on this, basically saying that the Continental tire look for the front is calculated as a signal to show that something is missing--it's less about coming up with a pleasing, simple front end and more about telegraphing in a graphic way the absence of the grille.

It doesn't make it any less weird or homely, but I get the reason for it.

The thing is... the front is growing on me.

But it is possible Tesla modifies it -- they could very easily eliminate what I call the "duck lip" and JST called the Continental Tire look by just aligning the break line a bit lower. There's a thread over at TMC where someone photoshopped the front to do that, and it completely eliminates the negative aspect of the front...

It seems that the work of Mr. Bangle and myself is finally done now that our love children are employed and making waves.

-A

Hey… Adrian made an appearance!