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Tesla engineers share Model 3 steering, drivetrain, and suspension secrets
The Tesla Model 3 is practically taking over the electric car market, establishing a strong presence in every region where it is released. A key reason behind this lies in the fact that the Model 3 happens to be a really fine automobile that just happens to be electric. It’s quick on its feet, handles nimbly despite its weight, and it provides a ride that is both sporty and comfortable.
One of the UK’s most established motoring magazines, Autocar, spoke with a number of Tesla engineers to gain some insights on the design and development process of the Model 3. The result was an extensive discussion in how a clean-sheet design and a serious commitment to safety could make all the difference when creating a car that is, for all intents and purposes, intended to reinvent the automobile.
Tires
Immediately emphasized by the Tesla engineers was that the Model 3’s chassis and suspension were designed using a ‘first principles’ clean-sheet approach. This started with the Model 3’s tires, which the engineers fondly described as the “unsung heroes” of the vehicle, being critical to its feel and drivability. The development of the Model 3’s tires began back in 2015, when Tesla started working with manufacturers to create the ideal tires for the electric sedan.
The engineers noted that the tires of a high-performance electric car like the Model 3 are challenged in different ways compared to gas-powered automobiles. This is due to a number of factors, including the vehicle’s weight and its instant torque. Since the bulk of an EV’s mass is situated lower down compared to a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, there is less vertical force buildup on the outside pair of tires to generate grip when cornering.
To address this, Tesla focused on tread stiffness, even developing new compounds to deliver a good combination of cornering grip and low rolling resistance for the Model 3’s tires. Sound-absorbing foam placed inside the tire cavity further increases comfort during driving by suppressing noise. The Model 3’s rear wheels hold some interesting secrets as well. The engineers revealed that each rear wheel of the electric sedan has six degrees of freedom, with five links and one damper, though the links are split to allow superior control over forces that are transmitted through the vehicle’s tire contact patch.
Safety Systems and Steering
The Model 3 has earned a perfect 5-Star Safety Rating from the NHTSA, the Euro-NCAP, and the ANCAP. This comes as no surprise, considering that the vehicle is designed from the ground up to emphasize safety. The Model 3’s front suspension, for example, was specifically designed to provide maximum protection in small-overlap frontal collision crash tests.
Sacrificial links that are designed to snap when the front wheel and suspension get damaged are also integrated into the vehicle, allowing the Model 3’s front wheels to rotate. This moves the front wheels outside the Model 3’s body, while pushing the car, its occupants, and its battery pack from the point of impact. These safety systems extend to the Model 3’s dual-motor AWD variants as well.
Tesla designed the Model 3’s electric power steering system to have a rapid 10:1 ratio. The power steering is equipped with full redundancy with separate power feeds taken directly from the vehicle’s high-voltage battery. The engineers also mentioned two electronic modules and two inverters providing “hot backup” to the system if one fails.
Brakes
The Model 3’s braking system is quite unique, in the way that Tesla opted to equip the electric sedan with more expensive four-pot brake calipers at the front wheels instead of a single-piston sliding mechanism. This gives the Model 3 superior pedal response, and it opened the door for the electric car maker to design its own piston seals that fully retract the brake pads after braking; thus, boosting available driving range and cutting drag. Such a system adds to the Model 3’s efficiency, which has proven superior to other premium electric vehicles like the Audi e-tron and the Jaguar I-PACE.
Elon Musk has mentioned multiple times in the past that brake pads in a Tesla will last for the lifetime of a vehicle. This is no exaggeration, according to the Tesla engineers, who noted that the Model 3’s discs and brake pads are designed to last for around 150,000 miles. This is made possible by the Model 3’s regenerative braking system, which allows drivers to slow down the vehicle without using its physical brakes. As for rust issues, the engineers pointed out that Tesla has developed new anti-corrosion techniques for its electric cars.
Suspension
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit discussed by the Tesla engineers involved the Model 3’s suspension. In true Elon Musk fashion, Tesla actually used concepts from NASA when it was refining the suspension settings of the electric sedan. The electric car maker based the Model 3’s suspension settings on a study by the space agency about how long the human body can be subjected to a certain frequency without feeling uncomfortable. Considering that the vertical frequency of a suspension’s movement affects comfort and drivability, Tesla engineers settled on a vertical frequency that is equivalent to a brisk walk or a slow run to give the Model 3’s chassis a comfortable, sporty feel.
The Model 3’s suspension has impressed a number of industry experts, among them being automotive veteran and teardown expert Sandy Munro of Munro and Associates. During his teardown of the vehicle, Munro noted that the Model 3 has areas of improvement in its body and finish, but everything from the electric car’s suspension, all the way down to its tires, is flawless. In a segment on YouTube’s Autoline TV, Munro mentioned that the person who tuned the Model 3’s suspension could easily be an “F1 Prince.”
During the electric car maker’s second-quarter earnings call, Elon Musk mentioned that the “story for Tesla’s future is fundamentally Model 3 and Model Y.” While the Model S and Model X were made to prove that electric vehicles could be superior alternatives to gas-powered premium sedans and SUVs, the more affordable Model 3 — and in extension, the Model Y — would likely be the cars that could reinvent the automobile and encourage mass-market car buyers to rethink what a vehicle could be like. Based on the Model 3’s success so far, it appears that Tesla is so far succeeding in this endeavor.
H/T to JPR007.
Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”
Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.
However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.
Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech
It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”
Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.
In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”
Musk said in full:
“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”
Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.
Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.
At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.
The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.
Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.
And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.
SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.
The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.
Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.
Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.
And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.
In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.
The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project
Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you
