Tesla’s $140,000 Model X SUV Does 0-60 in 3.2 Seconds
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I think the technology involved is fantastic, but it feels more like a product where they built it simply because they can.
EDIT/Disclosure: I own shares of TSLA. I was hoping of a X5/Q7/Caynne competitor that starts at $50-$70k, not a X5M/Caynne Turbo competitor which in themselves are very, very ridiculous and niche cars.
With the current demographic of Tesla buyers? Give this three months.
Charging infrastructure is the least of Tesla's concerns. They deploy, on average, one new supercharger station each day. This does not include the destination chargers I mention above, which are much cheaper and faster to install.
For a while now, SUVs, like the Audi Q5 and the BMW X5 that the Model X is trying to compete with, have been basically a "cooler" alternative to minivans. The key feature they share is the space and seating that they provide, but having off-road capability is useful to a small subset of SUV owners and is just there to add to the cool factor that differentiates it from a minivan.
Tesla is trying to grab the wealthy, 30-to-50-something parents whose focus on luxury and style prevent them from buying a minivan, which would probably suit them and their driving habits better than an SUV. Take a look at wealthier suburbs of San Francisco (e.g. Marin) and you'll see tons of luxury SUVs without a speck of mud on them.
The ads for these SUVs really reflect this trend. Audi demonstrates the prevalence of SUVs-as-kid delivery machines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soJs3ZUYtLI
While Lexus tries to present the same car Audi was bashing as sexy but safe:
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if you ran out of juice before reaching Yosemite.
Grades and highway speeds have a huge impact on range IME. Not to mention an extra 500lbs in passengers, a couple hundred lbs in camping gear, and that's not even getting to the camper.
The type of miles you're driving definitely matters. A gas vehicle is most efficient around ~60mph. Maintaining maximal range in an electric vehicle is a bad bet if most of your driving is highway miles. At least if my Nissan Leaf experience is relevant.
I found a nifty little site that takes into account elevation / vehicle weight, etc. for the actual route. Looking at the Model S, base range on the road to Yosemite with normal driving is 240 miles. Adding 700lbs to the car results in a range of 210 miles. So a 40% increase in vehicle weight only corresponds to a 12.5% decrease in range. This can be partially mitigated by driving at a "3/10" instead of a "5/10" in terms of range-extending, which results in about 225 miles of range with the same weight.
But yes, more range would be nice for an expensive car like this!
say what you want, albeit cool car, 260 miles is nothing for this category of cars. heading good direction, but not there yet. and if you head into real mountains, where you might end up doing 500-1000m vertical difference to get to some remote places, the batteries will last much less, pushing this super heavy monstrosity upwards.
Useless car for anybody but posh soccer mums. That doesn't mean it won't be popular though :)
It's not unrealistic. Also, it's not a question of going 260 total. The concern is you can, at most, drive 130 miles from the nearest charging station.
Model X is my dream comes true car. Except I can't afford it :P
If you compare Tesla's X and S to other cars, nothing really compares. How many cars fit 7 people yet accelerate like a Ferrari? How many cars effectively have 2 boots without being a van? How many cars cost a tiny fraction of the price to drive the same distance?
At that price point, you tend to be looking at either a little sports car, a luxury tourer, or a family tractor. This compares favourably with all of them.
At the moment the downside isn't even that bad: battery life will probably improve with time, and you can already go as far as most people need. Yes, your grand tour of the continent will take a few more stops, but pretty soon I'm guessing it will be close enough. And already the car drives itself. That's a huge, huge win.
I am expecting some competition though. I can't imagine the established manufacturers letting Tesla take the market in electric cars. That will hopefully bring down the price and increase variety.
The only thing they didn't outsource, the thing they think of as their core, is the engines. Which is the one bit that Tesla, and the future, neither needs nor wants.
But I'd expect to see a few more new names in this area, like BYD (a battery company, so you know their priorities are well aligned).
No one is going to cross shop this behemoth and an MX-5
http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx
The gull-wing-in-a-tight-space starts at ~18 mins in
Those doors lift quite high, and some garages or underground parking lots, have low ceiling. Though, this car is so expensive that probably a customer will have a garage the size of normal house..
Edit: It is at 20 minutes in.
I get that their goal is to create some iconic look, and when someone sees that car/door shape, people would say "Oh, it's Tesla".
I want vechicles/appliances/electronics/watches that can be repaired at a reasonable price. I don't like throwing stuff away, being held hostage, or forced to buy the next model.
Whenever my father bought a new vechicle, he would immediatly buy a Factory Service manual. At the time, I thought he was being cheap, but boy was I wrong. I ended up picking up a lot of my dad's traights. This one saved me thousands over the years.
My father's last truck had the option for power windows. I asked him why he didn't get that option. He was retired, and had money to burn. He told me, "I can roll up my own windows! Plus, it's another thing that will break down!" (This was before automobile companies finally got all the weak spots out of electric windows.) (I used exclamation points because he was always uptight/mad?) Well that was his last vechicle. He died too soon. I miss you dad. I wish you were happier in life.
As an proud Union Electrician, he would have liked the Tesla, as long as he could work on it.
They still break. Just replacing the switch is over $300 for most cars. I'll stay with my crank windows.
I live in a place with rather hostile weather in the winter time. I'd be a bit wary of getting a Tesla, not because of the reduced range in the winter (it's still good enough for me) but because I'm afraid the fancy door handles would freeze shut. But I guess this is a moot point, because if I could afford a Tesla, I could also afford a garage to store it in.
Unless a major breakthrough in drive-train technology comes along that can be taken advantage of we're in the long slow march of the optimizing process where you spend 90% of your resources to get that last 10% of performance.
If Apple is looking to compete with Tesla with their rumored iCar, we should probably expect a similar price. Someone will probably buy them, but that person won't be me.
I'm pretty excited for the future though. This kind of thing will get cheaper. Tesla may be able to swallow the risk of offering warranties on used vehicles as more long-life reliability data comes in.
1. Once fully extended, the door seems to protrude out from the car a bit which may cause a problem if you're tight against a wall. I'd be curious how they have solved this? It may be that we just can't open the door similar to a regular door when you're forced to park too close to the wall?
2. Similar to above, since the door protrudes a bit, what happens when there are Xs parked beside each other?
Other than the door questions I agree it looks like a superb SUV. If Tesla can manage to convince people on the door design and it reviews as well as the S did, then they've another great product on their hands.
Killed Paul Walker (gas engine).
It's also notable that Paul Walker wasn't driving when he died.
Any car can kill you if you drive it outside its safe envelope.
It's a really well balanced car with a good weight distribution and handles beautifully. The issue is that it's very different feeling to having an engine at the front and the center of gravity further forward.
If someone who is not used to mid-engined cars gets it into a slide, they'll be caught by surprise and probably lose control completely. But with a little bit of practice, it can be driven hard and recovered from pretty nasty slides.
Also, it doesn't have a electronic stability-control system.
Of course the driver is likely at fault in this case, but I'd wager that he wouldn't have gotten himself into trouble in most other supercars.
Same reason they out sliders on vans and minivans - bigger openings.