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This might not be as much of a problem for most of the target market, but I was really excited about the Tesla X until I heard about the doors - meaning no roof

This might not be as much of a problem for most of the target market, but I was really excited about the Tesla X until I heard about the doors - meaning no roof rack options at all. Here in Utah, I would love a nice, capable car in the snow with plenty of room for gear, but if I can't put mountain bikes on the roof or a roof box with skis on it in the winter, it's not very useful... Maybe I'm just not in the target demographic, but I can't imagine I'm the only one who wants roof racks on my electric SUV...

chime 13y ago
How about bike racks in the back? I wonder which placement is better for mileage due to aerodynamics: Top or back?
- bencpeters 13y ago
  I generally do 2 in the back on a hitch rack, and 2 on the roof on my Subaru right now. (but I realize that car shuttles requiring 4 40lb downhill mountain bikes isn't exactly your typical use case for a car! It's just an important part of what I personally need it to do...) In my experience, bikes on the hitch rack hurt gas mileage less than the roof ones, but I haven't been super rigorous with the comparison...
- avn2109 13y ago
  But... ski racks! So important for some people, and there's nowhere for them to go except on top.
  - chockablock 13y ago
    There are plenty of hitch-mounted ski racks (skis are held vertically).
robterrell 13y ago
I'm not sure you want to drive an electric car in the snow. Not that the torque wouldn't be great, but the cold would wreck your range.
- nonchalance 13y ago
  Wasn't there a NYT test drive where a really cold day affected range?
  - fancyketchup 13y ago
    Not as much as the fact that the journalist in question simply didn't charge it.
  - rz2k 13y ago
    Yes, that is exactly what the problem was, though it got lost in the drama. The car has a protection mechanism to prevent the battery from freezing, and when left over night in the cold without a charger, it will actually run an auxiliary heater to keep the battery warm enough. The reviewer expected the charge to be the same in the morning, so he called their technical support when it was so low. They didn't explain that the charge can substantially decrease overnight when parked in the cold, because it automatically runs a heater for the battery. Instead they suggested that it was an erroneous reading, and that it would correct once the battery heated up. It wasn't really a design flaw so much as a mistake from technical support exacerbated by an overbearing response attacking a journalist for not being omniscient.
- bencpeters 13y ago
  I'd be interested in finding out more about this. My parents (who live in NH, which gets its fair share of cold days) have a Prius and don't notice any mileage hit in the winter - in fact not running the A/C seems to help things more than cold would hurt. But there's definitely a difference between a hybrid and a full electric...
  - hamburglar 13y ago
    I suspect the hit is less for a hybrid, because in a regular Prius, the battery is basically used as a buffer, not a giant energy store. I have a plug-in Prius and my "pure EV" range (this is how far you can go without firing up the gas engine at all) is significantly shortened by cold weather. I haven't done any obsessive tracking of it and I've only been through one winter, but I'd say it's somewhere around 25% reduced capacity in the winter.
atourgates 13y ago
I think the Model X will be ultimately be disappointing for anyone who's looking for a SUV from a capability standpoint. Really, the first hint is right there in the marketing copy: "the best of an SUV with the benefits of a minivan" - which translated means "we know minivans are the most useful vehicle for families imaginable, but nobody likes buying a minivan, so we've made a vehicle that tries to have the functionality of a minivan, while not looking like one." On paper, minivans are spectacular for families. They're affordable. They haul people in relative comfort, they're easy to get kids in and out of, they drive well, and they get pretty good MPG. On reality, very few people actually want to own one. Ergo, millions of Americans drive SUVs who would really be better off in minivans. Which has led the industry to make lots of SUVs that try to offer the utility of a minivan, in a different form factor. In doing so, they lose the "Utility" part of the SUV acronym, or at least lose its traditional meaning. Out of the modern crop of SUVs, there are very few that could handle anything more arduous than a carefully grated dirt road. Which really, is fine, because how often does your average family-mobile need to ford a stream? Discounting the awesome technology and innovation, that's essentially what Tesla is trying to do with the Model X. And while I find the Model S stunning, this vehicle remonds me of the Buick Rendezvous, Pontiac Aztec and Toyota Venza. Not particularly stunning cars. I sincerely hope Tesla is successful, and I'd love to own a Model S, but I'm afraid the styling of the Model X is a step in the wrong direction. Every time I've seen a Model S in person, I think, "That's a great looking car." I fear few people will have the same reaction to the Model X.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  As I recall, the history is basically this: SUVs became very popular and displaced minivans as the preferred family personal transport because the car companies put lots of money into promoting them for that rule after government safety and other standards that applied to regular passenger autos were extend to apply to minivans. (Minivans were largely created and marketed as a major class as a response to those standards being applied to passenger autos in the first place; before minivans, the role was filled by station wagons.) The "utility" function of SUVs was central, they weren't really called SUVs and weren't nearly as popular. And crossovers blending SUVs and Minivan features are a result of many of those standards now being applied to SUVs, making the distinct class less valuable to the automakers, allowing them to focus more on the market and less on gaming the system. But, without an incentive to game the system, there's also no incentive to create a big marketing push to overcome the preference for SUVs that passed game-the-system marketing created.
schiffern 13y ago
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/168014307009892354 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/168014307009892354
r00fus 13y ago
Yeah, unfortunately, the doors also are a downside for me - I have limited garage side access.. The lack of roof-top carrier (which was the unsung hero of our last coastal drive) would be a downer too. Despite all this, I irrationally yearn for this vehicle.

chime 13y ago

How about bike racks in the back? I wonder which placement is better for mileage due to aerodynamics: Top or back?

bencpeters 13y ago
I generally do 2 in the back on a hitch rack, and 2 on the roof on my Subaru right now. (but I realize that car shuttles requiring 4 40lb downhill mountain bikes isn't exactly your typical use case for a car! It's just an important part of what I personally need it to do...) In my experience, bikes on the hitch rack hurt gas mileage less than the roof ones, but I haven't been super rigorous with the comparison...
avn2109 13y ago
But... ski racks! So important for some people, and there's nowhere for them to go except on top.
- chockablock 13y ago
  There are plenty of hitch-mounted ski racks (skis are held vertically).

robterrell 13y ago

I'm not sure you want to drive an electric car in the snow. Not that the torque wouldn't be great, but the cold would wreck your range.

nonchalance 13y ago
Wasn't there a NYT test drive where a really cold day affected range?
- fancyketchup 13y ago
  Not as much as the fact that the journalist in question simply didn't charge it.
- rz2k 13y ago
  Yes, that is exactly what the problem was, though it got lost in the drama. The car has a protection mechanism to prevent the battery from freezing, and when left over night in the cold without a charger, it will actually run an auxiliary heater to keep the battery warm enough. The reviewer expected the charge to be the same in the morning, so he called their technical support when it was so low. They didn't explain that the charge can substantially decrease overnight when parked in the cold, because it automatically runs a heater for the battery. Instead they suggested that it was an erroneous reading, and that it would correct once the battery heated up. It wasn't really a design flaw so much as a mistake from technical support exacerbated by an overbearing response attacking a journalist for not being omniscient.
bencpeters 13y ago
I'd be interested in finding out more about this. My parents (who live in NH, which gets its fair share of cold days) have a Prius and don't notice any mileage hit in the winter - in fact not running the A/C seems to help things more than cold would hurt. But there's definitely a difference between a hybrid and a full electric...
- hamburglar 13y ago
  I suspect the hit is less for a hybrid, because in a regular Prius, the battery is basically used as a buffer, not a giant energy store. I have a plug-in Prius and my "pure EV" range (this is how far you can go without firing up the gas engine at all) is significantly shortened by cold weather. I haven't done any obsessive tracking of it and I've only been through one winter, but I'd say it's somewhere around 25% reduced capacity in the winter.

atourgates 13y ago

I think the Model X will be ultimately be disappointing for anyone who's looking for a SUV from a capability standpoint. Really, the first hint is right there in the marketing copy: "the best of an SUV with the benefits of a minivan" - which translated means "we know minivans are the most useful vehicle for families imaginable, but nobody likes buying a minivan, so we've made a vehicle that tries to have the functionality of a minivan, while not looking like one." On paper, minivans are spectacular for families. They're affordable. They haul people in relative comfort, they're easy to get kids in and out of, they drive well, and they get pretty good MPG. On reality, very few people actually want to own one. Ergo, millions of Americans drive SUVs who would really be better off in minivans. Which has led the industry to make lots of SUVs that try to offer the utility of a minivan, in a different form factor. In doing so, they lose the "Utility" part of the SUV acronym, or at least lose its traditional meaning. Out of the modern crop of SUVs, there are very few that could handle anything more arduous than a carefully grated dirt road. Which really, is fine, because how often does your average family-mobile need to ford a stream? Discounting the awesome technology and innovation, that's essentially what Tesla is trying to do with the Model X. And while I find the Model S stunning, this vehicle remonds me of the Buick Rendezvous, Pontiac Aztec and Toyota Venza. Not particularly stunning cars. I sincerely hope Tesla is successful, and I'd love to own a Model S, but I'm afraid the styling of the Model X is a step in the wrong direction. Every time I've seen a Model S in person, I think, "That's a great looking car." I fear few people will have the same reaction to the Model X.

dragonwriter 13y ago
As I recall, the history is basically this: SUVs became very popular and displaced minivans as the preferred family personal transport because the car companies put lots of money into promoting them for that rule after government safety and other standards that applied to regular passenger autos were extend to apply to minivans. (Minivans were largely created and marketed as a major class as a response to those standards being applied to passenger autos in the first place; before minivans, the role was filled by station wagons.) The "utility" function of SUVs was central, they weren't really called SUVs and weren't nearly as popular. And crossovers blending SUVs and Minivan features are a result of many of those standards now being applied to SUVs, making the distinct class less valuable to the automakers, allowing them to focus more on the market and less on gaming the system. But, without an incentive to game the system, there's also no incentive to create a big marketing push to overcome the preference for SUVs that passed game-the-system marketing created.

schiffern 13y ago

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/168014307009892354 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/168014307009892354

r00fus 13y ago

Yeah, unfortunately, the doors also are a downside for me - I have limited garage side access.. The lack of roof-top carrier (which was the unsung hero of our last coastal drive) would be a downer too. Despite all this, I irrationally yearn for this vehicle.