Koenigsegg is making carbon-fibre bits for Teslas

In news that couldn’t be any more modern unless it came to you via TikTok, Koenigsegg is now making carbon-fibre aero parts for Teslas. That means an upstart, game-changing supercar manufacturer is making high-end bits to fit models from an upstart, game-changing electric car manufacturer.

As is customary with second paragraphs, it’s here that we need to point out a few technicalities. The first of which is that the carbon parts aren’t going directly to Tesla, but rather an aftermarket tuner called Unplugged Performance. And the second is that the carbon-fibre is actually coming from a company called Koenigsegg Advanced Manufacturing, which is still a Koenigsegg company, but not the one you’re thinking of.

In case you’re not familiar with Unplugged Performance, its stock in trade is taking Teslas – unarguably potent things in a straight line – and sort of finishing the job, as it were. Yes, it’s all well and good to make jokes about American cars not going around corners properly, but it’s rather less amusing when you’re steaming into a corner and discovering that, regardless of how clever software might be, it still can’t cheat physics.

But better suspension, brakes and so on are really only half the story. When we said that Unplugged finishes the job, it really is quite a bit more holistic than that. As the boss of Unplugged Performance told us a few years back: “When you order a Tesla, you go on a website and you choose options, and at a certain point you order what's considered a fully loaded car that has every option; our business starts where that process ends.”

So that means your mass-produced Tesla can be as bespoke as you want, inside and out. And as the results have made fans of us, buyers and even Tesla, we could see a world where Unplugged becomes an in-house Tesla tuner, much like Mercedes did with AMG.

Koenigsegg Advanced Manufacturing, on the other hand, is a Barcelona-based company that’s specialised in carbon fibre for two decades. As of 2016, Koenigsegg bought the company, presumably to help service Koenigsegg Automotive’s (i.e. the car-making one) need for incredibly complex, top-tier CF work. From there, it’s grown – as successful businesses tend to – and now offers Koenigsegg-worthy carbon fibre without the slight cost impediment of buying a Koenigsegg. Handy.

Because Koenigsegg’s actually something of a pioneer when it comes to carbon fibre – it manufactures its own in-house (no doubt with plenty of help from KAM), and was the first company to offer carbon-fibre wheels on one of its cars. Oh, and the small matter that the Regera’s carbon-fibre wheels were made from 750 individual pieces and took a week to build – per rim. And you think you’re nervous about kerbing your wheels.

The official moniker for the partnership is UP x KAM, because it’s impossible to collaborate these days without the addition of a lower-case ‘x’. Then again, would anything else suit something so modern?