Tesla Model X...better have a tall garage.
 

The AWD-only Tesla Model X crossover is getting market ready. Dynamic power delivery to all the corners will be in all-time vectoring mode, on all road surfaces and conditions, adjusting multiple times each second. Besides the expected Tesla EV tech goodness, the length and wheelbase would be comparable to the Model S. Using the fashionable crossover template, the Model X is taller and have a higher profile but it's biggest segment busting feature will be the vertically swinging rear 'falcon doors'. This will make production and ready next year. Measure your garage clearance or get the contractor ready for some reno.


2015 Tesla Model X Will Have All-Wheel Drive Only, Company Confirms

Falcon doors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rth5pxIDmE4

"Sell part of your soul to drive a minivan", what a wanker. Falcon fail, at least it seats 7, something you don't see usually in an suv unless it is aircraft carrier sized (with ironically little cargo room).

Doors go up no higher than the rear hatch, and appear to need no more space to the sides than a normal door.

"muscular sinewey feel, the athletic voice of the car". I'm gonna hurl now.

Tell me how much does it weigh, how much power does it make, how long does it make that power, what is the CDA, what is the price, then shut the hell up.

Some cases of very lower garage door opener clearances. Some just take care of it!!!

http://www.doityourself.com/forum/at...arage-beam.jpg

http://s.co.tt/blog/wp-content/uploa...6-1024x768.jpg

I'm holding out for the Model C.

The height doesn't seem to be much of an issue. It wasn't even a foot over the height of the man speaking, who was probably no taller than 6ft himself.

Did they say why it has gullwing doors? Seems strange to have both a conventional door and gullwing on the same car. I suppose I have had issues loading large boxes into the rear seats due to the door not opening wide enough.

..looking forward to Tesla's "cheap" EV for the common man.

Those rear doors, imagine wanting to get into the car in a hurry. Or out, for that matter.
I feel the novelty factor would wear off in the real world quite quickly.

And I just don't like the way they open and then wobble.

If Tesla makes it, I have confidence in their execution, but I knew a Soldier with Lamborghini doors that he liked so much that he wanted to sell the car, and a woman that did not purchase a car because it had problematic Lamborghini doors.

5 of the 7 passengers better be amputees. Really needs a longer wheelbase to be practical for family duty, otherwise I don't see an advantage over the rear facing S seats.

Just a rich mans toy. This is the farthest from being eco.

Maybe the lambo door hinges they are using were an after thought from a poor riced out chrysler 300 and one of the designers thought that was cool, but lets do it to the other doors instead. :eek:

You guys are all downers. It's fantastic. I love it.

Tesla is all over the place where I live. They are the best things on the street for EVs.
I guess many people were critical about the expensive last turn of the century automobiles, too. They were expensive but paved the way for the lesser expensive cars to come.
No one should be critical until they have driven a Tesla a few miles. They must be something special because they are outselling the luxury class Mercedes cars.

The doors are not what I would have done, but they do did design them to fit in typical situations. And they have sensors in them to stop before they hit anything.

If you find a more efficient, better performing SUV, buy it. Or, at least tell us about it.

The Model X will possibly be the first vehicle to be sold with video mirrors, and it is supposed to have a lower Cd than the Model S, which is 0.24. It will have two motors, one per axle, and all wheels driven.

Here's a video of Elon Musk talking to folks in Norway, about lots of things, including the Model X and the Model E:

Elon Musk Talks Tesla Model X Details, Model S Upgrades, At Europe Q+A Sessions

Well, maybe so. Over time mercedes have been more affordable for the masses, maybe the same with the Tesla? I know many evs come up for sale at a reasonable price that needs batteries.

I guess its the smugness of the guys,, like the first prius owners exhibited that turns people away.

That's why you don't sell cars.
 

You have to tickle the fancy of the buyer. Unfortunately, raw data is boring to most. Don't crucify him for doing exactly what I would do in his position - motivate those with the money to part with it.

I agree with this sentiment.
 

I spent a weekend over the Holidays in Napa Valley, California. I ran across three Teslas parked in front of a cafe. All the drivers were enthusiastic and knowledgeable car guys. No, they were not your everyday working stiffs. One was in shipping, one owned a software company and the third was a musician of some note. But, by their purchases, they help pave the way for the technology to move forward. In time, maybe there will be a 7 seat family van that is priced the same as a Chrysler Caravan.

I like to point to Bennelson's test drive of a model S. Awesome stuff.
Convinced me that I want one very bad. If someone gave it to me I'd sell the Insight.

manufacturers have been telling us we want suvs, which are neither sport OR utility, and have been horrible on fuel consumption in general. A 7 seater minivan has far more utility than your average 5 seater SUV. I care that people act like sheep and manufacturers do their thinking for them. If folks care more about the marketing (and what other people who bought into the marketing think of them) than they care about thinking critically about the product then we are perpetually screwed.

Not to mention that this probably $80,000 vehicle will come with $25,000 in subsidies paid for by the rest of us. you can put a pretty sweet EV together on just the rebate, instead of everyone paying a subsidy for more marketing/"SUV" crap.

This stuff affects everyone. Marketing tends to be ageist and racist and a bunch of other target "ists" and is a large portion of expenses, and is everywhere (including here now) and is %100 crap, and you are bludgeoned with it while trying to get the details of the machine.

The more you "sell" ME something the less likely I am to buy it. I cannot reward such behavior. If you do, then you are part of the problem, allowing manufacturers to control all the dialog.

Perhaps Tesla is simply demonstrating that the most efficient way to milk money out of the US government is by manufacturing electric cars.

Tesla has to enter the market that exists, and they have to succeed - before they can change it.

Tesla buyers "get" $7500 of tax credit, not $25K.

How much is oil subsidized by? I daresay most of our military budget is an oil subsidy, and the big oil companies have been earning the largest profits *ever* while paying tiny taxes. They get sweetheart deals on drilling leases, and they barely pay anywhere near the cost of the most rudimentary cleanups of the disasters they spew. Would you rather live next to a refinery or a wind farm? Or even live next to a gas station vs a Supercharger station?

This is garbage marketing, doesn't matter if it is oil or electric. A good product sells itself, so why so much marketing?!?

This marketer is particularly awful. I'll gladly take a 7 passenger EV though, just don't call it a "SUV".

Because otherwise this happens.

http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...f2/Firefly.jpg


Or this:

http://insideevs.com/wp-content/uplo.../04/gm-ev1.jpg

Or this:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/galle...da_insight.jpg

I tend to agree with P-hack's point that we need more information (stats) about what makes the Model X better than other alternatives. While passion and emotion are important motivators, it needs to be tempered by rational thought. The salesman did a poor job on both fronts; fumbling through the presentation, lacking emotion, and lacking useful information.

I'm not angry at the way marketing is done, only disappointed that human nature tends to be overly driven by emotion instead of critical thought. If people would give thought an equal say as passion, marketing would look a lot different. Not only would we have better products, but the divorce rate would be much lower, there would be less unwanted children, less debt...

Somehow our culture celebrates acting on emotion, and subverts logic by associating it with nerdy, uptight, wimpy people.

Spock say yes!

http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/a.../image-343.jpg

This becomes the Star Trek conundrum.
 

Does Spock give in to his logic or his emotions?

The answer is both - of course.

The Tesla salesman is under the stricture of time for his given presentation. I won't grade his presentation. But his focus on the emotional connection with the target viewer is spot on. I am quite sure you could have stepped up afterwards and picked up the "data" after the talk. That is simple. But if you have not created an emotional connection, the "data" would be useless. There would be no responders.

I have stood in front of private investors and government officials who represented millions in potential business and, I assure you, I did not spend my 15 minutes selling them on the "data". If I did my job well, they would extend my time slot and pick my brains over the data. Then they hopefully went off to read into the prospectus booklet.

Yes, our society would be better served to make decisions based less on emotions and more on logic. But, until that changes, advertising HAS to move people emotionally. Of course you must still have a viable product or service or it all falls apart.

Human emotions make us what we are - human. Coupled with our logical core, harnessed and focused, emotions are very powerful.

I'm not making excuses for advertising, they have had no small roll in conditioning people with lots of money for lots of face time. The less rational their consumers the more they buy hi margin low mpg things like SUVs.

This was all emotional garbage, who in their right mind has an emotional attachment to a car?!? Not that many people in their right minds anymore I guess.

I expect marketing/people will catch up with the information age sooner or later. Just don't accept this sort of garbage.

"I have the most awesome @#@#$@ing hammer!!! you really don't want to sell your soul on one of those other inferior hammers!!"

Those gull-wing doors are terrible. On a car that has only one door on each side they may work. But with two doors and the front one being a conventional door it is just crazy.
Senario, you stop the car, kids in the back open the gull-wing door to get out. Then you open your door and get out, SMACK, gull-wing door to the back of the head. What were they thinking? The design of the conventional door tends to guide you to step out and back which works fine if the rear doors are also conventional doors but with gull-wing rear doors it just doesn't work..
Surely they could have hinged the door horizontally just below the window line so that the the bottom half of the door swung in towards the roof and out of the way?
The trunk lid on most cars has the whole trunk to keep you away from the lid but i still occasionally bang my head when getting things out of the trunk. I can only imagine how often i would be cursing those gull-wing doors as i rub another bump on my head.
Get rid of the gull-wing doors and put on normal doors, get rid of the third row of seats, move the second row back so that there is actually leg room. Then you would have heaps of space for the passengers, and trunk space in the back and front. Now that would be a nice car. Ok, not a "People mover" but a very spacious car, luxurious even. A car that people would actually enjoy, not a novelty that people will laugh at in a year or two.

We are no fools, but we like to be pampered a bit.

Star trek is the perfect example. We know Star Trek is not realistic at all, but it is much more pleasant to look at than the harsh realism of 2001: a space odyssey.

We know what presenters and salespeople are like. They do not provide unbiased information. They can provide factual data - you need to fact check them before you believe it.
I watched my dad negotiate with car dealers, lots of them; comparing their cars to the competition. I got put off by obvious lies, but my dad ignored those just like all the small talk. He was just 'using time' as he knew the price would come down if you keep talking long enough; just picking out the occasional gem like free offers and so.

A man on a stage is a performer and no more realistic than if he wore pyjamas in a fake space craft. We like that, but will not make the error to take him serious.

"Because it's cool" is enough justification for anything. Ever.

We'll make up reasons later to justify it. After all, it worked pretty good with cars.
When public transport is clearly the logical alternative to personal automobiles in every scientifically measurable way, why are cars sold or driven at all beyond the lobbying efforts of the auto industry and actions such as the GM Streetcar Conspiracy?

Me, personally? I like the gull wing doors.

It makes it easier for me to imagine myself as a time traveler.

http://www.giveneyestosee.com/bttf/bttf-bk2b.jpg

I'm personally afraid that the falcon-wing doors were a concession to a 'qualified' marketing criteria. A checklist was filled, front-hinged doors are too pedestrian for the early adopters. Tesla is using the cliched tech template, that the key to marketing success depends on the excited first adopters for their free publicity, buzz, detailed consumer information and opinionated feedback. Early adopter marketing has a very narrow focus, targeting a specific 10% of the population, an affluent technically and socially mobile 'digerati' - the greying geeks who are financially peaking.

They are also the opposite edge of a knife, if Tesla ignores the first droppers' valuable feedback - they are also going to be the first to leave.

Public transport is good in theory but fails in practice. People have personal space requirements. Public transport does not allow for that. The average person feels discomfort at being forced into a confined space with people that they do not trust.
Then it only takes a few, "to cool for rules" travellers making a nuisance of themselves to push that discomfort to the point where the person actively avoids public transport if they can.
Human nature is a powerful thing.

Plenty of people have emotional attachments to inanimate objects. I had many adventures in my Subaru, and even dreamed about the car after it was totaled and hauled off. There was a pair of shoes an ex GF had given me that I was sad to part with when I wore them out.

Objects help people to remember important events in their lives and provide a way to feel connected to the past.

That said, I agree with your point of how silly it is that people get caught up in the emotion of purchasing something that is primarily a tool.


Public transport is not clearly the logical alternative to personal vehicles. The U.S. is not Japan. What public transportation will pick me up from work at 1am, or take me to my parents house out in the countryside? How do I get into the mountains to go camping? Public transportation goes nowhere I'd want to go.

Well, not now that we have a major infrastructure to support passenger cars... And we have a neglected public transportation system... But before the Eisenhower Interstate system? Before Route 66 was part of Americana? When cars were just toys for the rich? :turtle:

If we put as much support, financial backing, and long term mindset changes into public transportation, it clearly would do all those things and more, at a lower cost and environmental impact. For the record I love cars. But the idea from the previous post was simply backing the statement "Because its' Cool" is enough reason to do something.

:D

I live in a town of 450. Public transportation never existed, and never will.

The asphalt, cement, oil and auto industries have always lobbied against public transportation. We could have high-speed bullet trains and light rail everywhere, if not for the corporations dictating what we citizens can have for transportation.
They dismantled and completely destroyed the early light rail routes and implemented the dirty bus lines.

Wind farm. All that free bird meat, yum.Supercharger station. I'd sell overpriced iced tea to the folks milling around waiting for their cars to charge.

I think the falcon wing doors are an alternative to sliding doors found on minivans. I have no doubt they improve access to the rearmost seats, and they would also improve access for loading/unloading of stuff like baby seats and the babies in them. In other words, maybe they put them there for practical purposes.

My biggest issue with them would be how wet the inside of the car would get when they're open on an inclement day. Or, now that I think about it, when the roof of the car has a few inches of snow on it.

I'm sure that the same criticism was given to electric starters over hand cranking the engines.

Has anybody here tried that? :D

I have a flat battery in my Insight. Switching off on a red light it refused to start on go green.
I had all the lights and radio on, swiched them off and gave it another try. It turned over a few times without running, then slowed ... but just then kicked to life!

I believe i curse started that engine ! ;)