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Model X sales versus other large luxury SUV's

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This is my 2nd vehicle with gull wing doors (first was a Bricklin). The Falcon wing doors are, perhaps, the best of all the upward opening designs. They are quiet, fast, intelligent and super practical.

Believe they are much better than having minivan type sliding doors. For parents with toddler seats it makes loading those seats and kids much easier. They are unique in all the world in the way they work, and makes the X something pretty special.

Change is difficult, and it is understandable that owners who have been used to only standard, swing out doors, will find them a little strange (at least at first.)
 
Believe they are much better than having minivan type sliding doors. For parents with toddler seats it makes loading those seats and kids much easier.

Nobody ever quotes any other reasons than the child seats... that's basically the only scenario where falcon wings are better than other doors. Nobody ever gives any other reasons.

The doors are slow to operate, they don't allow roofracks, they cause issues in garages, take headspace inside, they are difficult in accidents etc.

No, I doubt there is much future for them beyond perhaps some minibus-like applications where it might make sense to open up the side of a vehicle (similar to trunk access)... which Model X fails to do as third-row access was not helped in the final design...

Change needs to have a point. Falcon wings have very few pros and lots of cons. There is a reason why the gullwing idea has not caught on and why falcon wings need a lot of expensive technical trickery to try to avoid those issues.
 
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Standard doors, standard roof, lesser weight, more range, $10 to 15k less cost - game over.

Instead we have a hundred topics on door issues. Not drive-train, not battery, not driving comfort, not interior luxury, not entertainment/media issues - but we are talking incessantly about door issues. Who would have thought?


Talk about...
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Would it add value to add another column, "Average MSRP" ?

I know it is difficult to find out that figure, but my point is, that number together with the sales unit count gives the full picture. Because I think X average sales price/unit, I am guessing around $110k would be much higher than many on that list, perhaps the highest.
 
Would it add value to add another column, "Average MSRP" ?

I know it is difficult to find out that figure, but my point is, that number together with the sales unit count gives the full picture. Because I think X average sales price/unit, I am guessing around $110k would be much higher than many on that list, perhaps the highest.

I will check into this. My Model 3 chart does include that information.

RT
 
Standard doors, standard roof, lesser weight, more range, $10 to 15k less cost - game over.

Instead we have a hundred topics on door issues. Not drive-train, not battery, not driving comfort, not interior luxury, not entertainment/media issues - but we are talking incessantly about door issues. Who would have thought?


Talk about...
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Yeah. We all know @mkjayakumar and myself are not necessarily on the same page about everything... ;) But we are on this!

Don't get me wrong. I love it personally that I got the chance - possibly a once in a lifetime chance - to buy something like the Model X as a new car. Perhaps it is the DeLorean of this time in terms of presence (this time boosted not by a movie, but the futurism of a BEV). I'm not confident we'll see another. (Tesla may stay stubborn on this, but I doubt it will catch on in wider terms.)

I love those doors.

But I also hate them. They are crazy stupid. There are absolutely no benefits to them in my own use and tons of downsides. Never has the maneuvering to enter and exit a car has been so tricky as it is with the Model X.

Most importantly, though, in my objective assessment - trying to be as objective as possible - no matter how much I appreciate the fact that I got to buy those doors, this is geeky daydream that has - on-the balance - no real-world merit. (At least not in a three-row car implemented like this, perhaps in that minibus with many rows that all open up to the side.)

Model X would have been out massively sooner, sold massively more at a massively cheaper price, had massively less R&D distractions and warranty costs for Tesla, without those doors. It would also have had a folding second-row from the start as the seat-belt integration would not have been an issue.

What it would have lost in halo presence, it would have made up - many-fold - in sheer popularity.
 
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As time goes by, I also have to wonder how easy or hard it might be for Tesla to implement a regular door variant of the Model X, as an option. After all, most car manufacturers do offer several form-factor variants of their cars...

Could they for example do it without changing anything other than the door attachment points and adding fixed roof panels on top of those regular doors, and re-designing interior roof trim to match.

Perhaps they won't bother too much with the Model S/X at this time, but are instead focused on the new babies so to speak. Just me pondering. We shall probably see Tesla's latest view on falcon wings in if (or how) those appear in future car models or a future next-gen Model X...
 
As time goes by, I also have to wonder how easy or hard it might be for Tesla to implement a regular door variant of the Model X, as an option. After all, most car manufacturers do offer several form-factor variants of their cars...

Could they for example do it without changing anything other than the door attachment points and adding fixed roof panels on top of those regular doors, and re-designing interior roof trim to match.

Perhaps they won't bother too much with the Model S/X at this time, but are instead focused on the new babies so to speak. Just me pondering. We shall probably see Tesla's latest view on falcon wings in if (or how) those appear in future car models or a future next-gen Model X...
I believe it would mean so much changes to the structures of the car so that they would need to do crash test and more again, don't know if the sales of Model X would rise enough to compensate the cost of develop and produce it. For the Model Y on the other hand I hope they will make it with normal doors too as the market is much bigger and the extra cost to have two door options could be compensated with a lot more sales.
 
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I believe it would mean so much changes to the structures of the car so that they would need to do crash test and more again,

Yeah, I guess it would require re-doing crash testing. Not sure about structurel changes if the B pillar can handle hanging the doors, rest of the structure could remain pretty much the same, with just cosmetic alterations. But I agree it would probably all add up to requiring crash testing, even in an optimal scenario.

don't know if the sales of Model X would rise enough to compensate the cost of develop and produce it.

Fair point. The biggest benefit of all this would have been to allow for a quicker ramp-up and sales start years ago. Now the benefits are a bit less big, especially given the potential in ramping up Model Y instead.
 
Nobody ever quotes any other reasons than the child seats... that's basically the only scenario where falcon wings are better than other doors. Nobody ever gives any other reasons.

The doors are slow to operate, they don't allow roofracks, they cause issues in garages, take headspace inside, they are difficult in accidents etc.

No, I doubt there is much future for them beyond perhaps some minibus-like applications where it might make sense to open up the side of a vehicle (similar to trunk access)... which Model X fails to do as third-row access was not helped in the final design...

Change needs to have a point. Falcon wings have very few pros and lots of cons. There is a reason why the gullwing idea has not caught on and why falcon wings need a lot of expensive technical trickery to try to avoid those issues.

Last month a somewhat overweight friend of mine commented that the middle row on my X were the easiest seats to get into in a car that he'd ever experienced.

The big opening makes getting in to the third row much easier, and it comes in handy when I need to put large things into the car, like the portable fridge/freezer I sometimes keep between the middle seats on trips.

So that's three good reasons that have nothing to do with child seats. :)

Given where Tesla is right now, it may be more important for Tesla that they are distinctively iconic, and draw the attention of everyone that sees therm, though that isn't necessarily a benefit to the individual user.



Random thought: there are more falcon wing doors in the road right now than all the gull wing doors ever built, I think.

Mercedes built just 1400 300SL coupes.

Wikipedia says less than 3000 Bricklin SV-1s were built.

Delorean built 8583 DMC-12s.

Suzuki built about 5000 of a tiny Kei car called the Autozam AZ-1 in Japan.

I'm having trouble finding exact numbers for the Mercedes SLS, but they sold about 2k gull wing versions in the US, maybe twice that world wide?

13 of the wacky Bristol Fighter Viper based supercars were built, and about a hundred Melkus RS1000s and a similar number of Pagani Huayra, plus a bunch of low volume kit cars and concepts.

By comparison, over 33,000 Xs have been delivered in the U.S. alone to date, probably over fifty thousand world wide.
 
Fair enough @Saghost on the examples. I am a bit hard-pressed to believe a sliding door would not have been equally easy - but yes, there is the roof opening for tall people sitting on the side seats of the second row that is a unique difference. Still, you kind of have to go looking for these benefits (or people point them out because the experience is so different). Many older people for example feel that without lack of support from a door they can lean on, getting out is harder even though the opening is bigger...

Had Model X, in the end provided the spacious opening to the third-row of its long-wheelsbase concept/prototype version I might feel different. This is why I believe the falcon wing idea might work on a multi-row minibus, if taken to an extreme size... in the current Model X it is mostly a trick.

Random thought: there are more falcon wing doors in the road right now than all the gull wing doors ever built, I think.

Yes, manyfold, and not only gullwings, but more than all kinds of automotive doors that open upwards. Perhaps combined. @wdolson I believe originally made that assessment on TMC and I concurred with this bit of math in May, 2017 - of course Model X has sold much more since then too. Did I forget some competitor?

I believe by now Model X has sold something to the tune of 40,000 units. The BMW i8 with its scissor-doors looks to be number 2, at something to the tune of 15,000 sales to date. Of the current publicly known EV concept/roadmap stories, nobody else seems to be entertaining upwards opening doors, so in its lifetime the Model X will likely sell many times over what the next best car with upward opening doors does.

Of the most famous past scissor-door examples, the long-running 1974-1990 Lamborghini Countach had a little over 2,000 units produced. Of more recent fame, the Pagani Huayra just 100 and Lamborhini Aventador hardtop 3,237. The famous gull-wing Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 1,400 units and of course the immortal DeLorean, over 8,000 units. Mercedes-Benz' newer SLS, might hold the third place - I believe it crossed into some five figures, split between the gull-wing hardtop and regular Roadster, though it is no longer made so its position will not rise.
 
As time goes by, I also have to wonder how easy or hard it might be for Tesla to implement a regular door variant of the Model X, as an option. After all, most car manufacturers do offer several form-factor variants of their cars...

Could they for example do it without changing anything other than the door attachment points and adding fixed roof panels on top of those regular doors, and re-designing interior roof trim to match.

Perhaps they won't bother too much with the Model S/X at this time, but are instead focused on the new babies so to speak. Just me pondering. We shall probably see Tesla's latest view on falcon wings in if (or how) those appear in future car models or a future next-gen Model X...

The structural changes necessary for changing door styles are pretty big. I have never seen a van with an option for a sliding door or a normal door, they tend to come with one or the other. To put normal doors or sliding doors on the X would require redoing the roof, the pillars, and probably some other structural changes.

I think Tesla would have been better off to abandon the falcon wing doors in favor of something simpler and well tested. They are a wow factor, but complex mechanisms tend to have problems as they age. I suspect older Model Xs are going to have a lot of problems with those doors as they get older.

I also wish the Model S had door handles more like the Model 3. They too are a wow factor, but they have been a problem for many owners. I haven't had any problem with mine, but I think about their failure all the time.

My SO is waiting for the Model Y. She fervently hopes it does not have the falcon wing doors. She is more of a car enthusiast than I ever was and likes iconic cars, but she would never want to own one. She wants something reliable, useful, and good in bad weather. If it's zippy, that's a big bonus, but not required. We don't have any kids, so the back seats on both our cars are folded down most of the time. Everything behind the driver is cargo hauling space.
 
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The structural changes necessary for changing door styles are pretty big. I have never seen a van with an option for a sliding door or a normal door, they tend to come with one or the other. To put normal doors or sliding doors on the X would require redoing the roof, the pillars, and probably some other structural changes.

There is arguably less need for many door variants with sliding doors, that are less controversial.

Not a direct comparison, but certainly in Europe it is common for a car to have lots of different body-types towards the rear - a car may have a sedan, a hatchback, a wagon and a convertible version.

In case of Mdoel X, I guess I was wondering how much could be achieved by simply attaching a door to the B pillar and leaving the roof structure as is. I wonder if they could get away with cosmetic panel changes at the roof level and only re-design B pillars and the door (or perhaps the B pillar already is suited for that). That might be doable, if so.

Not that I expect them to do it. Just thinking out loud...