Featured Tesla Model X Not Nearly As Successful As It Should’ve Been

'musk has admitted his mistakes'. would losing the falcon doors go too far, or is all the cost in r&d? still, maybe it's the audience, who drives luxury suv's and why would they want to go electric? are model s sales based more on performance than any other feature?

 

apparently, none of those attributes seems to be attracting enough buyers.
i'm thinking wealthy soccer moms, model x, land rover, audi, which will impress my friends more?

 

maybe not outside the ev world?

 

Wasn't the X capacity constrained for a long while due to its complexity. And there is only so much management and engineering talent and much of that was diverted to a new factory, new way of making cars and a new model so when the problems were realized the fixes were slow in coming.

 

they didn't mention production numbers in the article as one of the problems, but maybe you're right. they do mention design problems slowing introduction. perhaps i'm reading it wrong.

 

Musk has definitely admitted they made it too complicated. I think many of those issues have been ironed out and aren't as big of deal moving forward. But in retrospect it definitely cost the company time.

 

so the question is; is supply being outstripped by demand? if that's the case, the article is all wrong. the headline should be; 'tesla can't keep up with demand for model x'. and the report should site the reasons why.

 

I think demand is a little lower than for the S because of price and flashiness of the wing doors. There is definitely a segment that want to be flashy. But I think most buyers of Tesla's aren't buying it for its flashiness.

 

do you think anyone would be miffed if the wings came off?

 

Some for sure. Only reason it seems flashy is because you never see it on many cars. From a functionality standpoint you can make a good argument for them, same with sliding doors for that matter.

 

i'm just wondering if they could drop the price significantly, or if most of the cost is in r&d.

 

Only if they function reliably. I believe that gullwing door issues plagued the Canadian built Bricklin SV-1.

 

I think the falcon wing doors were a bad call. Kinda creepy, those heavy doors over your head. Look out if they were to fail and fall down.

Bro in law was here two months ago. Said he didn't like looks of Model X.

Another note. I'm hoping an alternative car comes around with about all I'm looking for.

..... still looking. Meanwhile getting 24 MPG in the Accord, but it's better than complaining about Prius.

 

Argument against them is that they hinder roof rack use. Yes, an efficiency sucker, but so is towing a one ton plus trailer. No roof rack is more of a deal to shoppers of an SUV than to car ones.

Without looking into it, there is a torsion beam that acts as a counter force to the door's weight, as there was in gull wing doors of the past. Without it, the motor to open door would have to be more powerful, and thus weight and cost more.

 

The mistakes are not anything to do with the vehicle today. Its how it got here. Here are the mistakes as analysts have said.

1) Too many things tried at once. This increased R&D spending and worse delayed the vehicle, and tied up people. This caused extra warranty expense, delay of the model 3, and the need to go raise more capital. Falcon doors were the major visible part. These could have been added on in 2020, and were not needed for launch.

2) Compromises were made to share a platform with the model S. Companies like toyota and ford do this as a cost saving measure, but sell many more vehicles, and have many more engineers and manufacturing staff, to make the compromises work. I don't think tesla realized the cost savings. They could have clean sheeted it, just getting cost savings from sharing drivetrain and battery. SUV sharing these with the model 3 is getting a clean sheet approach.

Really all of the mistakes with the model X are minor compared to big auto company mistakes. Then again now tesla is more valuable than gm. You expect management to admit and fix their mistakes, instead of spinning them and covering them up, like a typical old line auto maker.

 

that's how i read it as well. but the question remains, why aren't they selling more, error in market analysis?

 

It is a very expensive SUV, that as an SUV may not be as good as the other luxury SUVs. Not enough people want an electric SUV with falcon doors to meet high expectations. To me, its exceeding my personal expectations of sales. Then again I have little remaining of my initial tesla stock, because I think the expectations are getting really overblown. OK should have staid in longer, but eventually reality will come in, or the company will do something new and great (apples big change was the iphone)

This is from the latest shareholder meeting, where musk seems to be saying if they clean sheeted it, it would have been better and sold better. We already know things like the falcon door and other innovations were more expensive than doing a SUV platform.