Tesla Model X P90D 2017 review

Tesla does things differently than other automakers. In many ways, this is good. Instead of trying the hybrid world halfway through, they jumped straight to the all-electric, first buying a chassis from lightweight wunderkind Lotus, and then the company took a deep breath and took its research and development public.

The roadster was a mobile laboratory, a bit like the Ferrari FXX-K program, except it was much cheaper, quieter, and you could go anywhere within the electric range. Tesla then pretty much single-handedly turned the automotive world on its head with the Model S, sparking a massive amount of soul-searching and shifting corporate direction. Nobody knew Tesla was a battery company selling cars, so they weren't prepared for the wild but then proven range claims.

MORE: Read the full 2017 Tesla Model X review.

Tesla hopes the Model X is here to make us rethink what a big SUV should be. He had pregnancy problems and his first few months on the road, mostly with problems with the stupid Falcon Wing doors, but also guilt over a few stupid owners hurting themselves in self-driving cars like the Model S. so is ICS.

We got a cheeky weekend in the P90D version, complete with Ridiculous Mode and some fun options.

Does it represent good value for money? What functions does it have?

You have to take a deep breath listing your Model X, because before you hit one checkbox on your computer at home or in the dealer's shiny white hallway, you're looking down at a barrel of about $168,00 for a five-seater P75D. .

The P90D 90 breakdown means 90kWh battery, 476km range (according to windshield sticker, and FYI Europeans count 489km), P is performance, D is twin engine. All in all, it has a pretty impressive list of standard inclusions that heavily relies on sci-fi tech.

You start with 20-inch wheels, keyless entry and start, front, side and rear parking sensors, reversing camera, satellite navigation, LED lighting inside and out, power front seats with memory, electric sliding middle row, tailgate with power, panoramic glass windshield, rear privacy glass, automatic headlights and wipers, four USB ports and Bluetooth, 17-inch touch screen, dual rear sunroof, power rear doors, dual-zone climate control, very smart safety package, leather trim and air suspension.

This big screen runs very sophisticated software that adjusts just about everything from interior lighting to suspension height and handlebar weight, as well as the speed at which you can accelerate to 100 km/h. You can even see what it's like in cheap seats and drop the power down to 60D levels. You can connect your car to your home or work internet and receive car updates that can fix both hardware (like doors) and software problems.

The standard stereo has nine speakers and connects via USB or Bluetooth to your phone for music selection. Spotify is built in, as is TuneIn radio, which makes up for the lack of AM radio and uses the Telstra 3G SIM that comes with your purchase. So you depend on it for your AM radio.

Our car had several options. Well, most of them.

The first was a supremely sensible six-seat upgrade that removes the center seat in the middle row and installs two more seats behind them with 50/50 folding and easy walk-through. It's $4500 and you can ask for a mid-back for another $1500 for seven seats. Make them all in (real) black leather for $3600. And pair them with Obsidian Black Paint for $1450. The set includes dark ash wood trim and light headlining.

Ludicrous Mode makes the car move like Elon Musk's other product line, the $14,500 Space X rocket, and includes a retractable rear spoiler (like a Porsche, yes) that pops up when you sit down, and red brake calipers. The last two things are perhaps meant to counter the criticism that you are paying almost $15,000 for a few lines of code.

The higher amperage charger costs $2200, the enhanced autopilot is $7300, and another $4400 adds full autonomous driving. It's more than software - there are many more cameras, many more sensors, and a lot of computer intelligence. More on this later.

Ultra-high fidelity audio added $3800, and it's really not bad, 17 speakers with excellent resonance.

And finally, the $6500 "Premium Upgrade Package" that includes both the silly and the good stuff. Good things are Alcantara dashboard trim, leather accents and beans, including a steering wheel (which looks like leather as standard), soft LED interior lighting, active LED turn signals, LED phone lights, a nifty carbon air filter for the A/C and a docking station. station for quick connection to the phone.

Stupid things are self-presenting doors that partially open when I get close and then close in front of me (although in the movie it wouldn't work for me...) and the ridiculous "Bioweapon Defense Mode" for climate control that removes 99.97% of pollutants substances. from the air, just in case someone releases sarin or you're stuck in an underground car park with a thousand other people suffering from severe flatulence. This is probably extremely useful in cities like Beijing where the air quality is diabolical.

The front doors were smart when they worked as planned. You approach with a key in your hand, they swing open (while not hitting nearby objects), you go in, press your foot on the brake and close. You can also pull on the door lock to close them, or pull on them. Just a little unreliable, and we had more than one fight with them. The Falcon's doors felt like they were hand-crafted by comparison.

Ready? All in all, our P90D is on the road (in New South Wales) for $285,713. Throw away the roads and it's $271,792.

How practical is the interior space?

If you don't really need seven seats, a six-seater is a pretty good option. Being able to walk between the middle row saves a lot of time instead of waiting for the electric motors to slide and tip the middle row seats forward (you can also do this from the control screen).

The cockpit itself has a huge volume, and with the Falcon doors open, there's plenty of room to move around while everyone sets themselves up. As soon as the doors close, the side passengers will feel their heads close to the B-pillar, but thanks in no small part to the sunroof (cut from the top surface of the Falcon's door), the two-meter passenger (family friend) has just fitted. It was also a bit cramped for legroom, but that was to be expected.

Passengers in the front seats have plenty of headroom, partly because of the windshield that flips right overhead. The downside of this is the cabin heats up quickly and the need for lighter people to slip, urinate, slap for a trip to the shops. There are also four cupholders, two for regular-sized cups in the armrest and two for American latte bucket-style cups. There's also a lidded tray that can hold large sunglasses and/or a large phone, as well as two USB ports.

The middle row has two cup holders extending from the rear console and face-level air vents in the B-pillars. There are also two cupholders in the back row, this time between two BMW-style seats, for a total of eight in the car.

Cargo capacity reaches 2494 liters with the seats retracted, but that seems suspiciously large for measuring VDA down to the glass line. You can get a moderate amount of shopping in the trunk (probably a Mazda3 308-litre hatch), with all the seats in place, and there's a very useful front trunk with around 200 liters.

Falcon doors are amazing. They look brilliant when they open and close, work amazingly well in tight spaces, and are smart enough to know when to stop if you or an object is in the way. They are slow, but the huge aperture and easy access to the car are probably worth it. No, you can't open them, you always rely on buzz-buzz.

Is there anything interesting about its design?

The Model X looks suspiciously like someone photoshopped the Model S, lifted the B-pillar roof and balanced it by making the tailgate taller. It's not a classic design by any means, and even with the cleaner (or cleaner) front end featured on both the S and X, it just looks like a fat S or CGI rendering. The 22-inch wheels certainly help balance out the visual flabbiness and are therefore worth the cost for that alone. From the front, it's pretty impressive.

Detailing compared to other cars at this price level is not really in the trim or furniture like headlights, trim and things like turn signal repeaters, but the build quality has improved a lot compared to the first cars I've seen from the panel fit and color quality. to the small flip cover of the charging plug.

The inside is also a lot better than the earlier cars, partly because there's a bit more room to play, I guess, meaning it's not that hard to put everything together. Everything looks good, the skin is pleasant to the touch and expensive to the touch.

There are also Mercedes paddle shifters, which is annoying because the indicator/wiper switch location is too much for one stick. The shift lever isn't as annoying for some reason, and the cruise control and electric steering adjustment levers are the same. 

The dashboard is clean and dominated by a huge 17-inch screen in portrait mode tilted towards the driver. Recently upgraded to version 8, it's easy to use and responsive, although the music software is somehow not as good as it used to be.

What are the main characteristics of the engine and transmission?

The massive P90D battery powers two electric motors. The front engine produces 193kW and the rear engine 375kW for a total of 568kW. Torque is supposedly immeasurable, but you can accelerate a 2500-kilogram SUV from 0 to 100 km / h in a couple of blinks in three seconds in about 1000 Nm.

How much fuel does it consume?

Well, yes... no. Charging costs 35 cents per kWh at Telsa Supercharger stations (if you can get to one), and home charging is very cheap even in Victoria and New South Wales - a few dollars will fully (and slowly) charge you at home at a speed of about 8 km. mileage per hour of charging. This will work if your commute does not exceed 40 km in each direction and you return home within a reasonable time. Tesla also has so-called Destination charging with chargers of varying wattage in some malls, hotels, and other public buildings.

Model X buyers get a wall jack with their purchase, but you have to pay for installation (Audi does the same when you buy the A3 e-tron). If you have two-phase or three-phase power, you will get from 36 to 55 km in an hour of charging.

What is it like to drive a car?

The quickest way to explain the Model X is to say it's a slightly taller version of the Model S, which is fair given that a significant portion of this car is an X. 

The acceleration is phenomenal, exciting and possibly traumatic for passengers. You really should warn people to keep their head against the restraint to prevent a minor whiplash or, as one friend discovered, a crack in the head from the rear window. There are other cars that go to 0 km/h just as quickly, but the power delivery isn't as brutal, sudden, or relentless. No gear changes, just a floor, two, three and you lose your license.

Despite the huge 22-inch alloy wheels our X was shod in, the ride is as impressive as it gets. It's still durable, but smoothes out the bumps and bumps in city traffic, isolating you from the motorways.

It keeps the X flat in the corners, and combined with the grip of the Goodyear Eagle F1 rubber makes the X obscenely fast. It will understeer and it doesn't have the finesse of - again - other cars in this price range, but the acceleration will make you, your family and friends giggle forever.

Most of the weight is very light, and the car is pretty stiff (although not as stiff as the top-of-the-line S) with a near-perfect 50:50 weight distribution. Given that most of the power comes from the rear, it feels pointed, but there is still understeer on turn-on, although not as sharp as on the first S P85D I rode. It doesn't look like it could roll over, and Tesla believes they couldn't have caused the rollover during testing.

Of course, it's super quiet, which means you hear every creak and squeak, most of which we've traced back to the Falcon's doors, and even then only over big bumps. 

The range doesn't seem to depend much on spectacular acceleration shenanigans, and had the car been fully charged when I picked it up, I'd have it back in four days and countless hard starts (with a car full of giggling idiots on board) with Charge to save money by simply topping it up overnight in the garage the night before.

Unfortunately, a number of features, standard and optional, were not yet operational due to the long-awaited hardware 2 software rollout installed in X. This meant that active cruise control was not working (although regular cruise control did). ), autopilot (intended for motorways) and autonomous driving (intended for the city) were not available. They are currently being tested on 1000 vehicles in the US, and all vehicles return information as the sensors work in shadow mode, which means the hardware is doing its thing and not driving the vehicle. We will receive it when it is ready.

What safety equipment is installed? What is the safety rating?

The X has a whopping 12 airbags (including front knee airbags, four side airbags and two door-mounted airbags), ABS, stability and traction control, rollover collision sensor, forward collision warning and AEB.

Something that depends on sensors didn't work on our machine due to the fact that the software was not yet ready for hardware version 2 (expected March 2017).

The ANCAP test was not conducted, but the NHTSA gave it five stars. Which, in fairness, they gave the Mustang.

How much does it cost to own? What kind of guarantee is provided?

Tesla comes with a four-year/80,000 km bumper-to-bumper warranty and roadside assistance for the same period. Batteries and motors are covered by an eight-year unlimited mileage warranty.

Anecdotal evidence suggests fast and reliable responses to critical issues, including unconditional car rentals. 

Maintenance costs may be limited to a $2475 three-year service plan or a $3675 four-year service plan that includes wheel alignment checks and adjustments if needed. It seems high. Individual services range from $725 to $1300 with an average of almost $1000 per year.

Look, it's big money. Much of what the Model X does is copied by the Audi SQ7 for just over half the price of the X we drove, so the $130 saved could be spent on diesel for the rest of the world. But then that's not something that concerns Tesla customers, at least not all. There are still bugs in the system, a few bats on the bell tower, but again and again you remind yourself that this is not a new automaker, this is a new mode of transport.

This is what makes Tesla special. It's not headlines like Ludicrous Mode, but the fact that the (almost) new player in town isn't just churning out crappy cars like some Chinese manufacturers are, just to make a quick buck. 

Tesla has reinvented the entire automotive industry - just look at how the Volkswagen Group and Mercedes-Benz are struggling to bring their electric vehicles to market, and how depressed Renault executives look when you talk about Tesla compared to their offerings. While GM and Ford were sending jobs overseas, Tesla was building factories in the US and hiring Americans to run them.

You are buying the dream and the future of the automotive industry. Tesla has allayed our fears that the future will suck and it's worth buying a few overpriced SUVs to help the rest of us.

Is the Model X an automotive dream or a nightmare for you? Tell us what you think in the comments below.