Hands-on video with Tesla’s electric Model X | Hacker News Reader

Hands-on video with Tesla’s electric Model X

gigaom.com

56 pointsdrey27 comments

I can't help but thinking - when I was a kid, this is the kind of car I thought we would have when I was an adult. I recently watched "Revenge of the Electric Car" which heavily features Elon and Tesla. It's definitely an interesting story - and one that deserves to be told.

Electric cars obviously have many (and some major) problems. But I can't shake the feeling... I want cars like this to win. I still personally don't think I would want to spend this much on a car... but I'm really excited that we're finally getting true innovation in the auto industry.

I'm not sure if the coolness factor of the gull-wing doors (as opposed to, say, sliding doors) compensates for their incompatibility with a roof rack.

I'm also wondering how well they keep water out when you're loading your kid in during a winter rain storm in the Northwest.

I don't know about yours, but I know they wouldn't open in my garage...

I had the same thought. The door design is very cool, but seems surprisingly impractical for a car that is intended to be very functional.

Wow. That is kind of weak. Then again, my snowboards tend to ride inside and frankly, I'm not sure an electric vehicle is going to make it up the mountain to Tahoe anyway.

Why wouldn't it? This thing will have torque that makes most gas cars look like go karts, and have adaptive AWD to boot.

Hey hey, don't knock the go-karts :) some of them go 0-60 as fast as a veyron.

Haha good to know. Let's say moped, then.

Because it doesn't have a 200 mile range going up a mountain.

I agree.

I can already see the reviews: "This car is mega awesome, but what were they thinking with the doors?".

Sliding doors are mega awesome.

Having more inside space probably compensates.

The doors completely ruin this car. They're absolutely hideous.

Really hated this video/interview. Sometimes when someone is being interviewed it feels like they are directing the interview in their favour - in this interview it feels like Musk is directing the interview because the interviewer was incapable of doing it herself, and he was having to help her out.

It's a shame the interviewer didn't know more about cars - there were some pretty interesting questions that were left unanswered in that video.

For anyone wondering, 0-60 in 4.4 seconds isn't just fast for a minivan, it's fast for any car. The 2012 BMW M3 - a race tuned sedan version of the 3-series - will do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds on average. The gull wing doors are impractical and (depending on who you ask) pretty hideous, but Tesla may have stumbled into a huge market of young professionals who need a large car but don't want to give up performance. Let's hope for their sake Tesla's spent as much time working on safety!

Too bad that clearance in underground parking spaces means you'll be trapped inside...

Now this is an electric car I would definitely buy! The Roadster was meh (not a fan of compact sports cars), the Model S was good, the X is excellent - can't wait to see what they have in store next (a full sized SUV, maybe?).

The next one is Bluestar set for launch in 2015, a year after Model X. It will be a $20,000-$30,000 sedan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_BlueStar

The front looks beautiful, but the back (which is ugly) reminds me of a SsangYong Actyon (http://www.netcarshow.com/ssangyong/2006-actyon/800x600/wall...). I'd love them to design the back similar to a BMW X6, which is also a Crossover-SUV, but looks great. The performance and the price point is quite impressive though and I'm heavily rooting for them.

I know that it doesn't matter much, but as 19yo kid, it's the first mini-van/SUV/whatever, that I have I want it feelings towards to.

Way too cool to deserve the "minivan" title

I was thinking not useful enough to deserve the "minivan" title. Minivans, like station wagons before them, are the world's schleppers. A big, flat bottomed, flat topped box that you can yank the seats out of and fill with junk... and then bungee more junk to the top.

Its a fine first step, but the winner in this space is going to be the company that makes a simple box with batteries, motors and seatbelts that's so simple and so cheap, it will make its IC predecessors look like steam power. I'm betting Hyundai comes out of left field with something and surprises everyone.

Tesla is trying to make a car company not an electric car company.

The electric part is just the new bit, every car will have electric in the future. You can clearly see them innovating with the touch screen display, luggage space, performance etc.

Agreed; the largest advantage of electric car production is the comparative simplicity of the underlying "sled" (can't link directly, but you can see it if you go to http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/interior and scroll down to the section "safety"). After several iterations of that, producing cheap cars will be a no-brainer. I'd also expect rising differentiation between "car companies" and "electric car sled producers".

The glare on that 17inch touchscreen was quite bad. I think the angle it's mounted at doesn't help either.

I really thought that the people at Tesla were smart enough to make usable electric cars. Not toys for rich people.

The Model S is a more conventional sedan (no wing doors) and starts at $49,900 – which is getting closer to the middle class. Like with any new technology, prices will come down with time.

http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options

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