The world’s first luxury electric SUV is gorgeous. It’s futuristic. And once again, Tesla Motors is redefining the electric vehicle. Tesla’s Model X is probably the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in history. Standard with all-wheel drive and a 90 kWh battery providing 250 miles of range, Model X has ample seating for seven adults and all of their gear. And it’s ludicrously fast, accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in as quick as 3.2 seconds.
Let’s start with the acceleration. It’s crazy. Every Model X comes with a 90 kilowatt-hour battery and dual motors, a model known as 90D. Sixty mph comes in 3.2 seconds, which is on par with the some of the best sports cars from anyone in Italy, Germany, or Britain. We tried it. That number’s legit. Tesla says the Model X P90D will do it in 11.7 seconds. That put its alongside cars like the BMW M5, Corvette Z06, and Porsche Panamera Turbo. Top speed is limited to 155 mph.
The Ksh. 13.5 million electric vehicle that will go 250 miles on a charge, carry seven people and haul more stuff than anyone but a hoarder might want with him. And although the X shares much of its DNA with the impressive Model S P90D sedan, in many ways it eclipses that phenomenal car. It’s not just the design, which is futuristic without being weird. It’s not just the performance, which is holy shit fast. And it’s not even the dramatic “falcon” doors that lift like the wings of a bird. That means the X can park in a tight spot or garage and rear passengers will still be able to get in and out, because the doors get completely out of the way. (You need to be mindful of ceiling clearance, but ultrasonic sensors in the doors will stop them if they’re about to hit something.)
There’s a lot of flashiness to these — there’s not a lot of justification for them — though they make getting in and out of the back a breeze, and they’re designed to make it especially easy to install a car seat for a child. Despite that 3.2-second 0-60 time, this is still a family car, after all. The rear and front doors are all motorized, of course; in fact, the driver’s side door will automatically close itself if you get in and put your foot on the brake.
Another clever trick is the “monopost” design of the second-row seats, which is fancy way of saying that each seat (two if you get the six-passenger model, three if you get the seven), sits on its own chrome-plated post. That makes each seat almost infinitely adjustable fore and aft and provides ample room for everyone’s feet.
Equally impressive is the sound system which is, in a word, glorious. But then, with 560 watts and 17 speakers, how could it not be? Tesla designed the system in-house specifically for the X because it wanted to ensure the system delivered the best sound with the smallest power requirements—essential in an electric vehicle. (General Motors took a similar tack with the Chevrolet Volt, tapping Bose to design a system specifically for the car.) The sound is crisp, clear, and loud—even when standing 15 feet away from the car.
The styling is perhaps best described as a Model S on steroids. It’s a taller, obviously, and, at 5,441 pounds, about 740 pounds heavier than the S. That said, it also looks more than a little like the BMW X6 from the rear three-quarter view—but when it glides by you silently on the freeway, you’ll know it’s a Tesla.
The remainder of the interior is Tesla typical: the seats look nearly concept-spec, mounted on thin, shiny posts that open up additional storage space around the floor of the vehicle. (The third row folds down, but the second row does not.) The dash will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s seen a Model S, with a full LCD instrument cluster and 17-inch display in the center stack. The user interface, for better and worse, is identical to the S, apart from pictograms of the car that have been updated for the X.
As with recent builds of the Model S, the X features Autopilot — Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system — and the company says that both vehicles will stay in lockstep as Autopilot becomes more advanced and new software builds roll out. At launch, the Model X will only be available with a 90kWh battery — the largest that Tesla currently offers.
