I'm not saying that there won't be people interested and excited about the Model Y. There will be and there will be a lot. Note that I'm expecting demand to be 450-600k units/year, which is a lot for a luxury crossover.
The point I was trying to get across was that to a certain segment of SUV shoppers, the Model Y won't be appealing. Especially those who are looking for the "sport utility" in the sport utility vehicle. Meaning, those who like the most cargo space possible, want the option to tow a boat or trailer, etc. Also, there are many who don't want to stop and supercharge on a long road trip, especially those with young kids. But in order to buy a Model Y (over a X5, let's say), one needs to see more benefit than disadvantages compared to buying a X5. All I'm saying is that while there will be a lot of people who will see that benefit, like your wife for example, still there will be even more who aren't swayed by the Y and prefer an ICE SUV.
This dynamic is quite interesting because I believe it's more pronounced in the SUV segment. For the compact/mid-size sedan market, most people aren't necessary using it for long road trips (some are, but many have a second larger vehicle) or for towing or hauling lots of stuff. There's a lot of people using compact/mid-sized sedans for commuting, around town or in cities. To many, the Model 3 can be very compelling because let's say they have a 20-60 mile commute each way, and using the Model 3 they save on gas and they just charge overnight. In other words, there aren't a lot of drawbacks buying a Model 3 as a commuter car. So, as long as the car is priced competitively, there will be lots of people interested. The biggest disadvantage of an electric car, besides price, is charging on road trips. That disadvantaged is muffled/muted when using the Model 3 as a commuter car, since a family might use the Model 3 as a commuter car and they might have a larger car for road trips.
However, the Model Y presents slightly different dynamics. For SUV shoppers, many will see immediate disadvantages like the lack of sport utility compared to ICE counterparts. An EV compact/mid-sized sedan actually competes better against their ICE counterparts than the Model Y will compete with its ICE SUV counterparts. Yes, I know this will be controversial and would like to hear thoughtful responses to it. But the reasons being is that the Model Y isn't a great SUV in the sense of being able to do certain things a SUV can do, like tow/haul and do quick gas stops on a road trip. But one might say, a lot of people aren't looking for those things in a SUV, and that could be true... but I do believe road trip charging is a big negative for EVs at the moment. This disadvantage will shrink over time as charging gets faster. I do think the Model Y will compete well against it's ICE Crossover counterparts. In other words, for those people who just want a car that sits higher and has easier ingress/egress, then the Model Y can be very appealing... and I suppose that that's the bulk of the crowd that will be buying the Model Y.
But, long-term, the technology is improving and batteries are getting cheaper/better, and eventually EV SUVs will outcompete ICE SUVs... but that will take some time. Just providing a reality check here.
