Do you know why the Tesla Robotaxi is gold?

Beyond the fact that a beautiful golden dress is more elegant than a dull white one, Tesla wanted to pay tribute through this means.

The Tesla autonomous Robotaxi is currently exhibited at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California, where it will remain until early January 2025. Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s head of design, visited it and enthusiastically participated in a Q&A session. In a video posted by the Museum, he explains the stylistic choices and the reasoning that led to the project’s completion. The car can accommodate two passengers, features automatic opening butterfly doors, and has a large tailgate for loading. It uses the same technology and sensors as Tesla’s current vehicles but requires no pedals or steering wheel to operate. Logical for an autonomous car.

Franz von Holzhausen also explains that he chose the color gold because it reflects a sort of future version of the idea of a taxi in yellow, like New York’s famous Yellow Cab. We won’t lie to you, we hadn’t thought of that… The Yellow Cabs, the famous yellow taxis of the Big Apple, appeared in 1915, standardized by John Hertz, the founder of the Yellow Cab Company. Why this color? Simply to improve their visibility and increase the likelihood that a customer notices them and decides to take a short trip rather than using public transportation. They became a strong symbol of the city in the 1920s with the rise of public transit. Limiting their number in 1937 to 13,595 licenses secured their exclusivity and, unfortunately, their reputation. We are Yellow Cab for life, so no need to try too hard, which led to some laxity in service, if not worse. The rise of VTC services like Uber has limited their omnipotence, redefining their role in the modern urban landscape. Ironically, a yellow driverless vehicle might be the death knell for them.

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