Tesla just got a US design patent for a car it doesn’t make right now. The US Patent and Trademark Office granted design patent D1,156,251 S, “Automobile body,” on Tuesday, Nov. 3. It covers a low, four-door fastback sedan. Tesla filed for it on May 5, 2025. The grant landed almost six months after the last Model S rolled out of Fremont. So yes, I’m squinting at the drawings.
The patent doesn’t name a model. Tesla hasn’t said a word. But the record has a pretty big hint in it, and the timing makes this more fun than the usual patent paperwork.
What the patent covers
A design patent protects how something looks, not how it works. This one has a single claim, which is normal: “The ornamental design for an automobile body, as shown and described,” per the patent record on Justia. Then come 14 drawings: eight perspective views from above and below, front and rear, both sides, the top and the bottom. Shading shows the surface shape. Anything drawn in broken lines isn’t part of the protected design.
What you see is a long roofline that slides into a fastback tail. Korean Tesla watcher Chansoo Byeon, who first spotted the grant on X, and the patent-tracking site GetTesla also point out a front lip, side skirts, a rear spoiler and a rear diffuser. Tesla watchers on X credit the design to Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen and designer Julien Bilodeau. That pairing shows up on a lot of earlier Tesla design patents in Justia’s listings, from a trunk lid in 2017 to the steering yoke in 2021.
US design patents filed after May 13, 2015 last 15 years from the grant date. So this one runs to 2041.
The Model S clue
Here’s my favorite part. Patent examiners list the prior art they looked at. Under “other references,” this one cites three 2025 articles, and all three are about the 2026 Model S: a MotorTrend piece on Tesla’s 2026 lineup, a Carscoops piece on a possible Model S facelift, and an Autoevolution story on a “Juniper”-style Model S refresh. The examiner visited all three on March 4, 2026.
That doesn’t prove which car is in the drawings. Examiners cite whatever looks close, and the closest Tesla four-door fastback is obviously the Model S. But it does tell you the patent office saw the resemblance too. It’s not just me.
The awkward bit is timing. Elon Musk said on Tesla’s Jan. 28 earnings call that Model S and Model X production would end, with the Fremont space going to Optimus robots, CNBC reported. The final Model S came off the line on May 10, 2026, according to electrive and Car and Driver. So Tesla now owns 15 years of protection on a sedan shape, at a time when it sells zero big sedans.
Three ways to read it
None of these is confirmed. The boring one is defense. Tesla patents shapes it has already built so nobody can sell a knockoff. A May 2025 filing, while the Model S was still being built and refresh talk was going around, fits that. Carmakers also patent designs they never build.
The fun one, and the one X likes, is that this hints at a future sedan or a sportier Model S successor. The spoiler and diffuser help that theory along. I’d love it to be true. I’m still treating it as a guess until Tesla says something. Tesla’s design team has been busy with other bodies too: Justia lists two more Tesla “Vehicle body” design patents granted in August and October 2026. Both were filed on Oct. 9, 2024, one day before the We, Robot event where Cybercab was unveiled.
Not a Tesla App, which I check first for Tesla news, hadn’t covered the grant when I wrote this.
The EVX Take
For buyers here in Japan, nothing changes today. Tesla stopped taking new orders for the Model S and Model X in Japan at the end of March 2025, leaving just the Model 3 and Model Y (Nikkei reported it at the time). And a US design patent only protects the shape in the US. Japan has its own design registration system at the Japan Patent Office. If Tesla ever brings back a big sedan, Japan would matter, because big premium sedans still sell here. Think Lexus LS and Crown. For now, the clearest thing this patent tells me is that Tesla still cares enough about its sedan silhouette to defend it. Lately it’s been all Cybercab and Roadster (see the Cybercab’s European tour), so a sedan patent really sticks out. Tesla’s Japan sales are carried by the Model 3 and Model Y, both built in Shanghai (October shipments here).
Lester’s take
I’ve had four Teslas in five years, three Model Ys and a Model X, and never a Model S. So a patent drawing that looks a lot like one is the closest I’ve gotten 😅 If this turns into a real car someday, great. If it’s just paperwork, at least it’s very good-looking paperwork 😂
Big thanks to EVX reader @tesla_shonan for the heads up on this one.
Sources: US Design Patent D1,156,251 S (Justia), Justia inventor listing, GetTesla, evtrend.pl, Chansoo Byeon on X, CNBC, electrive, Car and Driver, Nikkei.
— Lester Miyashiro
Featured image: Fig. 1 from US Design Patent D1,156,251 S (USPTO, public domain).