yes, i am new to the tesla world.
no, i am not new to the automotive world by a long shot. i have been fixing and tuning cars for the longest time and through the course of my life so far i have had several different kinds of racing licenses both for cars and motorcycles.
i am not stuck on ice cars and i find electric cars very promising along with some glaring shortcomings. for the last 5 years i have owned a few electric vehicles, but no teslas. the 2022 mxp is my first one and here is my quick take on its driving dynamics
the good:
acceleration- we know about that one- i have driven only handful of modded cars that would have similar performance in a straight line and they were heavily tuned and not very reliable (let alone comfortable) for a daily driver.
turn-in- i do not know why, but the x has excellent turn in feel - the car tracks well and when pushed hard will understeer a bit (which is very plebian, but seems to be the norm for "regular" cars nowadays). it reminds me of a stiffer bmw x6m turn in feel which is not a bad thing at all. speaking of turn-in- i find the whole steering experience to be spot on for a sporty suv. there is a excellent configurable steering feel that does not strike me as particularly artificial at any rate. well done tesla.
brake feel and one-off stopping power- it actually feels alright for something that heavy. if pushed repeatedly brakes will fade in a hurry, but for daily driving stopping is excellent. surprisingly for a vehicle for the masses the abs is sort of shy and not very aggressive. have not tried to push the stability control yet, but this will come too and i will share my experience too.
power to the ground - for something that has 1000hp the x puts its power to the ground very nicely and in controlled manner. the power delivery and balance are clearly geared towards regular folks who probably never drove a high hp vehicle before...,
regen - i believe the only available setting (why tesla?) is dialed in perfectly for one-pedal driving. the transition from power to regen is smooth and there is zero perceived driveline lash (as expected as there is no really driveline, but some electric cars still manage to have a really bad throttle/regen transitions)
the not so good:
acceleration - the suspension is too squishy for the acceleration rate it is capable of - in full on sport mode under hard throttle the car feels disjointed and camber and toe-in move around a lot. and i do mean a lot. i understand it is a 6000 pound vehicle so physics is physics, but the suspension geometry and body motions absolutely need to be controlled better
overall chassis - for one reason or another the x is very flexible. it will creak and groan over bumps and there is a lot of longitudinal twist. the falcon door setup that carves large gaps to the side of the body is not doing the x any favors in chassis stiffness. there is no shudder (hello ford and gm?), but i would say 50% of the cabin rattles come from chassis flex. the other comes from the build quality which is not a subject of my post (yes, it is not great given the price point).
front end - i mentioned above i like the overall steering experience. however, the front suspension is not fully sorted out - the front half shafts are rough.. i understand they have to channel a few hundred hp so they need to be on the beefier side, but come on. at light throttle they will vibrate and even sound audibly coarse. and no, it is not the tires (but see below)
tires - upon delivery i noticed that the tires (i have the 20" wheels) are rough when rolling down the road. noisy and with some vibrations. so i took them to my shop and spun them on a road force machine. the balance was spot on. however all four had excessive road force load and two of them were way over the limits. so- tesla factory does balance the tires well, but no road force. which results in all kinds of wierd thumping noises and vibrations down the road. come on tesla. at least match the high/ low points on the tire with the valvestem on the rim - nope. tires were randomly mounted on the rims.
power to the ground - remember i said the x plaid does it nicely? it certainly does - but in a effort to make it a bit more controllable for regular folks they have compromised a bit - namely from a dig- i noticed that the front motor is over eager and repeatedly will spin a bit the front driver side tire under hard acceleration. this is not optimal. i would prefer a bit more rear engine bias and squat under hard acceleration. tesla might even consider a rear-bias driving mode for those of us that think understeer is boring
torque vectoring - the x does not take good advantage of the technology(if at all? I have not felt it so I am not even sure they use it)... when pushed hard into turns the x prefers to fall into understeer instead of aggressively vector steering you into the turn. any sportier porsche with that technology can be used as a reference point on how this system should work. maybe it is not turned on- who knows?
so this is it. overall i am pleasantly surprised with the x plaid driving dynamics. tesla has managed to nod to many different potential customer groups and has done it mostly successfully. there are quirks and lack of qc and half- baked execution galore, but if you compare it to other 1000hp vehicles- this one is a cream puff
no, i am not new to the automotive world by a long shot. i have been fixing and tuning cars for the longest time and through the course of my life so far i have had several different kinds of racing licenses both for cars and motorcycles.
i am not stuck on ice cars and i find electric cars very promising along with some glaring shortcomings. for the last 5 years i have owned a few electric vehicles, but no teslas. the 2022 mxp is my first one and here is my quick take on its driving dynamics
the good:
acceleration- we know about that one- i have driven only handful of modded cars that would have similar performance in a straight line and they were heavily tuned and not very reliable (let alone comfortable) for a daily driver.
turn-in- i do not know why, but the x has excellent turn in feel - the car tracks well and when pushed hard will understeer a bit (which is very plebian, but seems to be the norm for "regular" cars nowadays). it reminds me of a stiffer bmw x6m turn in feel which is not a bad thing at all. speaking of turn-in- i find the whole steering experience to be spot on for a sporty suv. there is a excellent configurable steering feel that does not strike me as particularly artificial at any rate. well done tesla.
brake feel and one-off stopping power- it actually feels alright for something that heavy. if pushed repeatedly brakes will fade in a hurry, but for daily driving stopping is excellent. surprisingly for a vehicle for the masses the abs is sort of shy and not very aggressive. have not tried to push the stability control yet, but this will come too and i will share my experience too.
power to the ground - for something that has 1000hp the x puts its power to the ground very nicely and in controlled manner. the power delivery and balance are clearly geared towards regular folks who probably never drove a high hp vehicle before...,
regen - i believe the only available setting (why tesla?) is dialed in perfectly for one-pedal driving. the transition from power to regen is smooth and there is zero perceived driveline lash (as expected as there is no really driveline, but some electric cars still manage to have a really bad throttle/regen transitions)
the not so good:
acceleration - the suspension is too squishy for the acceleration rate it is capable of - in full on sport mode under hard throttle the car feels disjointed and camber and toe-in move around a lot. and i do mean a lot. i understand it is a 6000 pound vehicle so physics is physics, but the suspension geometry and body motions absolutely need to be controlled better
overall chassis - for one reason or another the x is very flexible. it will creak and groan over bumps and there is a lot of longitudinal twist. the falcon door setup that carves large gaps to the side of the body is not doing the x any favors in chassis stiffness. there is no shudder (hello ford and gm?), but i would say 50% of the cabin rattles come from chassis flex. the other comes from the build quality which is not a subject of my post (yes, it is not great given the price point).
front end - i mentioned above i like the overall steering experience. however, the front suspension is not fully sorted out - the front half shafts are rough.. i understand they have to channel a few hundred hp so they need to be on the beefier side, but come on. at light throttle they will vibrate and even sound audibly coarse. and no, it is not the tires (but see below)
tires - upon delivery i noticed that the tires (i have the 20" wheels) are rough when rolling down the road. noisy and with some vibrations. so i took them to my shop and spun them on a road force machine. the balance was spot on. however all four had excessive road force load and two of them were way over the limits. so- tesla factory does balance the tires well, but no road force. which results in all kinds of wierd thumping noises and vibrations down the road. come on tesla. at least match the high/ low points on the tire with the valvestem on the rim - nope. tires were randomly mounted on the rims.
power to the ground - remember i said the x plaid does it nicely? it certainly does - but in a effort to make it a bit more controllable for regular folks they have compromised a bit - namely from a dig- i noticed that the front motor is over eager and repeatedly will spin a bit the front driver side tire under hard acceleration. this is not optimal. i would prefer a bit more rear engine bias and squat under hard acceleration. tesla might even consider a rear-bias driving mode for those of us that think understeer is boring
torque vectoring - the x does not take good advantage of the technology(if at all? I have not felt it so I am not even sure they use it)... when pushed hard into turns the x prefers to fall into understeer instead of aggressively vector steering you into the turn. any sportier porsche with that technology can be used as a reference point on how this system should work. maybe it is not turned on- who knows?
so this is it. overall i am pleasantly surprised with the x plaid driving dynamics. tesla has managed to nod to many different potential customer groups and has done it mostly successfully. there are quirks and lack of qc and half- baked execution galore, but if you compare it to other 1000hp vehicles- this one is a cream puff
