Comment by reklawnos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reklawnos | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think this is really aimed at people who "take them for longer camping/ski/road trips," though.

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rohl8v_IGKk

I don't think he was implying off roading. Just a road trip. They did show it pulling an airstream with 10 bags of luggage. Surely they weren't implying a trip down the street. Camping is [typically] done in more remote areas, like Yosemite. So 260 miles is a pretty poor range for a vehicle like that when your destination may not have charging stations.

There are lots of charging stations, tesla, and otherwise now, and after 200 miles is a great time to grab lunch.

Do you care about safety? Then driving 260 miles without a stop is not smart. Do you have kids? Then driving 260 miles without a stop is also highly irrealistic.

But yes, more range would be nice for an expensive car like this!

c'mon, it's easy for me in europe to do 400 miles trip without stopping, on highways and no kids of course.

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 :)

The question isn't how many times you stop, it's driving 3.5-4 hours then needing to plug your car into a wall and wait many hours for it to be ready to drive again. It's so inconvenient to not be useful in road-tripping.

I have seen some fast charge stations in the UK, on motorway service stations where people usually stop for about an hour,these offer an 80% fast charge in 30 mins.

I care about safety and I have kids. I routinely drive SF to Orange County with 1 gas stop in the middle. 260 miles at free way speeds is 3.5-4 hrs. Not a huge deal. I often burn through a tank of gas before stopping ~400 miles.

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.

Most importantly for these purposes, the range on the Model X is sufficient to drive from Palo Alto to Lake Tahoe (220 miles) or Yosemite (165 miles) without issue.

And back? You'll definitely have to charge or risk running out.

Or back and forth to work / the grocery store. According to the US Department of Transportation, people drive an average of 36 miles per day.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

Towing a small pop-up camper? At highway speeds the whole trip?

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.

Tahoe could be trouble with a camper in tow, but the distance to Yosemite is only 2/3rds of the published range for the Model X -- I'd be shocked if there wasn't sufficient range to get there. Curb weight for the X is ~5,400lbs, call it 5,500lbs with driver.. Adding 5 passengers averaging 100lbs (family of 6) and 200lbs of gear would only add ~13% to the vehicles weight which would only minimally impact range since drag is a much bigger determinant for highway trips.

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.

http://www.jurassictest.ch/GR/

They showed it pulling an Airstream[1] during the event. I didn't hear whether they stated what range that would get though. ;)

[1] http://i.imgur.com/AEAw6xN.png

I wonder how the weight to range ratio scales..

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