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The SUV is the perfect "form factor" for an electric vehicle because they are typically large and heavy so the big battery pack will not hurt so much in the wei

• pilom 12y ago
  I completely disagree on the SUV being the perfect "form factor" for electric. At least if the SUV is being used for things like carrying gear for an excursion or off-roading. In those cases, it is a terrible form factor (especially with the gull-wing doors that prevent you from using a roof rack). Off-roading isn't as efficient at regenerative braking compared to stop and go traffic in an urban area. They go to areas not at all served by charging facilities let alone superchargers. They generally need even greater range than urban only cars. All of these things make an electric SUV not the SUV for me. If you just mean the silly way Americans use SUV's (to simply be taller than the other cars on the road) then maybe it is a decent form factor.
  • saucetenuto 12y ago
    Well, they're selling it in America, right? So American behavior shapes their opportunities, even if it is silly.
  • Mvandenbergh 12y ago
    Most SUVs will never see a day of offroad driving in their lives. That's good because most of them aren't suited for it in a stock configuration anyway.
    • tormeh 12y ago
      Yeah, the people who actually go offroad use Mercedes Gelandewagen or the less consumerized models from Land Rover and Jeep.
      • freehunter 12y ago
        Or a Toyota 4Runner, which is built for trail use from the factory. So much that they lost sales in the few years they tried tuning it for the road.
  • jmartinpetersen 12y ago
    Lots of SUV's are bound to the concrete jungle, I doubt it is an american phenomenon. I see loads of SUV's incapable of going off-road here in Denmark, and I doubt the more southern parts of Europe are different.
  • ghshephard 12y ago
    I don't know if it's "Silly" or not, but you are correct that Americans, in general, do not use SUVs for "Offroading."
    • gtaylor 12y ago
      Though, I think we're starting to see a lot more crossovers appear in the US (as opposed to full-sized SUVs). A crossover doesn't imply off-roading prowess, as one of the common characteristics of a crossover is being built on a car platform. I'm hearing the term more in everyday discussion, and I'm seeing as many or more crossovers than SUVs these days in the US southeast.
  • blt 12y ago
    No, most Tesla SUV drivers will not go off road. The Model X is a "crossover" SUV with very limited off-road capability. You can tell in photos: its ground clearance is low and it doesn't have large suspension travel. It's going to take sales from the Lexus RX, Mercedes M-Class, BMW X series, etc. Nobody takes those cars off-road. I used to share your disdain for SUVs until I dated someone who drove one. They can be really useful for carrying cargo and the smaller ones get decent fuel economy. That said, I think a lot of SUV buyers are motivated by fear. They feel that collisions are inevitable so they want to drive a big armored box. They want 4WD even here in the Southern USA where it snows 2 days per year. I think a lot of them have kids and it's one more part of the protective worrying parent mentality. Personally I can't stand the handling of tall vehicles.
    • rayiner 12y ago
      > Personally I can't stand the handling of tall vehicles. There was a time when I loved the handling of my 3-series with sport suspension. Now, I just want something that makes my toddler less pukey on these shitty northeastern roads.
      • psaintla 12y ago
        Or drive a vehicle that can get through two feet of snow when you work in a field where taking a day off isn't an option.
        • rayiner 12y ago
          This past winter my car might as well have been a sled.
    • caw 12y ago
      Whether it's a crossover based on a truck or car platform makes a difference. My girlfriend's crossover is on a truck platform, and handles like one. We recently test drove a newer crossover built on a sedan platform, and it drives more like a sedan.
  • cpwright 12y ago
    Or you use the SUV to carry your kids and stuff around. An SUV is bigger and more comfortable than most cars. - Easier to fit car seats and people in - Seats 8 (as opposed to 5) on the rare occasion that you want to - Has four wheel drive, so handles better in the snow - Has a trailer hitch for your bike rack, which is more convenient than trunk mounted ones. - A roof rack for sheet goods - Enough cargo space for suitcases, moving, or a trip to the home center You can get by with a smaller car, but the SUV form factor provides lots of capability, which is nice to have whenever you want it. I've got one sedan (an Accord) and an SUV (a Pilot), both have their place.
    • bitJericho 12y ago
      That's what a minivan is for.
      • dpark 12y ago
        Yeah, but then you're driving a minivan.
        • kbenson 12y ago
          Which really isn't that bad. Slightly less ride comfort than some SUVs, but better interior luxuries for the price and much more versatile in an urban environment, with better gas mileage. Really, the worst thing about driving a minivan is other drivers. People have such a perception of minivans being slow and pokey that people will attempt to pass you on the freeway regardless of the speed you are travelling. If you drive a minivan and another vehicle on a regular basis, how other cars treat you is very noticeable.
          • bitJericho 12y ago
            Never had a problem in my area with that. I will say a minivan far surpasses an SUV in usefulness though. I liken a minvan to a pickup truck that you can actually seat people inside of. It's great, you can haul anything you can imagine, beds, freezers, couches, and if you're not busy hauling giant appliances around, you can put the seats in and haul around a bunch of people. The gas mileage is on par with an SUV, and you never get any flack from the police. Who's gonna bother a someone in a minivan? Nobody that's who.
  • netcan 12y ago
    Slight sidetone: The reaction to this comment is really depressing. Obviously exDM69 means 'perfect' in a certain context. IE, does being electric make an SUV better at being an SUV and doing the things that the people who own SUVs, own them for. The comments and voting can't help but be all about how people feel about SUVs in general.
    • seanflyon 12y ago
      People are pointing out the difference between what "people who own SUVs, own them for" and what people actually do with SUVs.
  • exDM69 12y ago
    > I completely disagree on the SUV being the perfect "form factor" for electric. At least if the SUV is being used for things like carrying gear for an excursion or off-roading. Most SUVs are driven by soccer moms taking their kids to school. That's the "form factor" I intended in GP. If we would be talking about an off road vehicle, I'd agree with you.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • ensignavenger 12y ago
    I don't consider the Model X a true SUV. Tesla calls it a "crossover" which I suppose is the industry lingo for fake SUV's like the Model X. I can see how it would be a good alternative to a minivan, though. So maybe they should call it a "crossover" minivan? (I suppose calling it a minivan wouldn't be as attractive as SUV.)
    • dragonwriter 12y ago
      A "crossover" is the industry term for what amounts to a station wagon with SUV-like styling. "Minivan" and (non-"crossover") "SUV" are two names for what amounts to a station wagon built on light-truck frames -- with originally somewhat different demographic targeting in the marketing, but eventually the "SUV" class's marketing broadened to subsume the target that minivan marketing had been focussed on -- originally to fit loopholes in passenger safety and efficiency regulations (which have since largely been closed, hence, the emergence of the "crossover", which was a reversion since the expense of the regulatory dodge was no longer particularly useful.)
  • personZ 12y ago
    the silly way Americans use SUV's (to simply be taller than the other cars on the road) Everyone I know who owns an SUV has multiple children. I have four children, and with that a minivan and an SUV. Kids come with a lot of accessories, especially with modern safety requirements of car seats and so on. It is really unfortunate that every discussion about SUVs turns into some sort of oddball moralizing (especially bizarre when they're contrast with minivans, also 5000lb+ vehicles with largely the same fuel economy). SUVs actually have a very practical purpose. They of course use more fuel, generally, though on the flip side that awareness of fuel makes me less likely to take flippant drives (all things tend to equalize, generally).
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > If you just mean the silly way Americans use SUV's (to simply be taller than the other cars on the road) then maybe it is a decent form factor. Americans don't really buy SUVs for any rational reason, there was just a period of very intense propaganda directed at creating the idea that they needed SUVs as an attempt by the auto industry to get around US government safety and efficiency regulations from which "light trucks", which SUVs were carefully designed to qualify as, were exempted (Minivans where an earlier focus of the same PR effort, for the same reason.) ("Crossovers" are basically what happened when the original motivation was gone but the industry had already created the demand, so they went back to making passenger autos that weren't built on truck frames, but still had to make them styled like SUVs to sell in the market conditions their own intense marketing efforts had created -- since that was cheaper than doing another marketing blitz to get people to stop wanting things that look like SUVs.)
• Shorel 12y ago
  In terms of real usefulness, it is a horrid "form factor" that wastes fuel and space, electric or not. In terms of market, it can be the most successful vehicle for the American market. These are two separate things.
  • gambiting 12y ago
    >In terms of real usefulness, it is a horrid "form factor" that wastes fuel and space I never understood this. I used to drive a Land Rover Discovery 3, which is a SUV. And then I had a rental Open(or Vauxhall, for UK folk) Insignia for two weeks - your typical 5 door sedan, a typical "car" which does not invoke hate in most people. And I could not possibly understand how such a "large" car, with footprint as large as my Land Rover, could be so small inside! It took as much space on the road as my "horrid waste of space" Land Rover, yet it could only take 5 people instead of 7, and probably half the luggage. But if you put these two next two each other, you would be a lot more quickly criticized for driving the SUV, purely because it's an SUV. But both cars had nearly identical length and width - so how is the SUV taking more space? If anything, the Insignia was half as practical as the land rover.
    • Shorel 12y ago
      > yet it could only take 5 people instead of 7 And both of them usually only carry one, the driver. That's the main issue.
      • gambiting 12y ago
        So what is the solution? Have one small car when you are driving alone,and one huge for driving with family? That works somewhat - but I am fairly certain that the ecological impact of producing two cars is larger than that of driving one oversized one.
• Vik1ng 12y ago
  heavy so the big battery pack will not hurt so much in the weight budget. Wrong! Very wrong! More initial weight means more batteries needed in the first places, which means more weight and even more batteries because of that. Reducing weight on electric cars is really beneficial: Less weight => less batteries => less weight => less batteries...
  • dm2 12y ago
    I'm sure weight matters a little but torque is what gets the vehicle moving and regenerative breaking puts more back into the batteries with more weight. Aerodynamics seem to be a more critical factor for electric vehicles. You want the vehicle to be able to cruise while using as little energy as possible, and weight doesn't matter as much for maintaining speed. It's the same reason that most modern trains are electric or diesel-electric rather than pure diesel. Many aircraft tow tractors are also electric these days, and they haul some fairly heavy loads.
    • morsch 12y ago
      You realize of course that regenerative braking puts more* back into the batteries for heavier vehicles only because a lot more was necessary to speed them up in the first place?
      • dm2 12y ago
        I do realize that regenerative breaking does not 100% cancel out the energy required to accelerate the vehicle. The Model X will be ~10% heavier and Musk has stated recently that the range is expected to be ~10% less than that of the Model S. In other words, obviously a heavier vehicle will use more power than a lighter vehicle, that's true with any fuel source, but it's a small difference in this case. They could put a battery pack with 15% more capacity in it and the range would be about the same as the Model S, but they're probably going to use the same battery as the Model S for compatibility and manufacturing reasons.
  • eqdw 12y ago
    The tyranny of the battery equation?
• cenhyperion 12y ago
  > The Model 3 has potential to shift the whole market if they can provide a practical electric family car for the average people living in suburban areas. I actually don't think the target audience is families living in suburban areas. That's not the target audience of the BMW 3 series or Benz C class. I think their target audience is young professionals who can't afford a car that quickly costs over $100k but care about driving a practical, electric, professional car.
  • dm2 12y ago
    Not just young professionals but technology lovers who are not millionaires. The car has it's own API and the cost savings verses a normal ICE vehicle could really add up in this newer low cost vehicle. No oil, gasoline, etc.
  • rdl 12y ago
    Even though I could (barely) afford a Model S, I don't want one due to size. I think that is a market; people who like small, sporty, luxury cars, are relatively price insensitive ($40k vs. $60k for the Model III is insignificant to me; I'll keep it for 5-10y and drive 150-200k miles, so fuel/maintenance/etc. savings dominate purchase price), etc.
• dm2 12y ago
  It'll be good for towing also. Electric vehicles are excellent for towing, I've seen lots of places use normal electric golf carts to tow huge boats, it's all about torque.
• zarkov99 12y ago
  The weight of the model S is pretty much irrelevant in day to day driving. Handling is fantastic. SUVs are more challenging as electric vehicles because for most families they are the default road-trip vehicles and, at least for now, long road trips, as opposed to daily commutes, are a little more inconvenient for electric cars.
• Shivetya 12y ago
  Lets be honest here, if we are having to stay so large to get any real range from batteries then the tech truly isn't ready yet. One reason I haven't been all that impressed with the S is because even as large as it is its only 250 or so miles per charge. Some of the elements in its design are really good, but battery storage isn't prime time when it takes the majority of the car to get so little range. Call me when the tech will take a Focus/Leaf sized EV near 300 miles for around 30k, then I will listen. Right now the only good bet is a range extender, fortunately the two big ones; i3 and Leaf, are affordable by a great many more drivers.
• larrys 12y ago
  "The SUV is the perfect "form factor" for an electric vehicle because" Don't agree. SUV has big wind drag (not sure if that is the right word for it) which reducing efficiency in gas powered vehicles. I can't imagine that it isn't the same effect in electric powered. (I mean that's obvious, right or am I missing something?)