While my early VIN 2016 P90D Model X is in for repairs to the HVAC box and front half shafts (second time), Tesla Cleveland thankfully got me a Michigan fleet vehicle as a loaner. For those of you not familiar, Michigan doesn't have it's own service center, so vehicles requiring repairs that can't be handled by the mobile Rangers are shipped via flatbed trailer to the closest Tesla service center. For me that's in Cleveland OH, about 180 miles away. I've received a loaner for the three times I've had to have this done in the past, with the last time a Hertz car rental (RWD Jaguar) which was pretty horrible in the snow. The Cleveland service center has always been prompt with the exchange and excellent with providing timely updates to the process. It's always a pain when something goes wrong, but Cleveland has always been great.
Thankfully this time, they dropped off a 2018 75D Model X with about 1100 miles on the odo. It has a similar configuration to mine, with the winter and tow package. I don't keep abreast of all the latest changes, but this one has AP2. I didn't see navigate on autopilot and I don't know if it's because it hasn't been pushed to the Model X or if it's because this isn't HW 2.5+ or whatever, but I did see the release note for TeslaCam.
Having this loaner affords me the opportunity to compare how far the Model X development has come in the short two years since I purchased mine. I'm the kind of person to keep a vehicle for its full life so it's kind of mind boggling how quickly things have changed.
Exterior
Besides the AP2 cameras, no other changes are super obvious. Build quality is on par with mine, which is excellent. No issues with panel gaps or paint quality. I have the original Catalina white and the loaner is the black multicoat. There are some minor body changes in the mating surface of the Falcon Wing doors. I have some rubbing issues between the door and jamb towards the rear of the vehicle that has cause some paint to wear away. The body panel in the loaner has been reshaped with a flat landing to address this issue. The auto opening doors sound different when opening. There's a less harsh latching sound and the pusher sounds smoother, but this might be due to age differences; newer cars sound more solid. The trunk struts have a mechanical buzzing and pneumatic woosh, which it the same as mine, but I always wondered it the buzz was normal. The spoiler was fixed, which is too bad because I love my moving spoiler. I couldn't find any other exterior differences.
Interior
The front windshield is different. I always wear sunglasses with polarized lenses and it seems like Tesla changed something in the polarizing lamination, as I can see the purple and gold color of other cars front windshield, and some paints look like they have a color shifting effect as I drive by them. The double headlight glare from oncoming vehicles also wasn't apparent but I haven't had much time night driving.
I have the interior premium package on mine, which has Alcantara head and dash liners. The loaner doesn't have it on the dash, but it does have an Alcantara like material on the pilars and headliner so it looks like it's configured with the black premium package. I thought they moved away from Alcantara, so if it's different, it's very close in feel. Compared to my 2016, there's an additional wood panel on the center sliding door that mine doesn't have. The seats are non-perforated leather as the seat cooling option was removed. The falcon wing doors are operated with a push button switch, which is much better than my lever. I've read that I could switch this out.
The seat backs and sides are matte plastic compared to my shiny, which looks nice and probably wears better. The loaner is a 6 seater, compared to my 7, and they're still mounted on monopods. I can see the appeal of the 6 seater since it allows much easier access and legroom to the third row. My kids loved being able to climb back there without hopping over the seats and the rear visibility is much better without a middle headrest getting in the way. The third row seats operated the same as mine and didn't have any obvious differences. The sides of the trunk space was wider, removing the never-used rear shelf support and adding some kind of a plastic vent.
Driveability
Interestingly, the 90% charging level in the 75D was very close to my P90D at 209mi vs 213mi. The 100% charge was about 15 miles less at 220mi vs my 235mi. The 75D was quick, but noticeably slower under hard acceleration without the insane mode. the 75D just didn't have the same punch when accelerating at speed.
Coming from and being very comfortable with AP1, I was excited to try AP2. Also, being a software engineer that works on clusters, I was excited to see the differences in HMI and graphics. AP1 is great and I got what I paid for, but let me tell you, visually, it feels like low tech compared to AP2. First I'll talk about visuals, then go on to performance. IPC graphics are markedly different from AP1 to AP2. The displayed vehicle is smaller to allow for more vehicle display around the car. My AP1 can see about 6 cars in front of it in three lanes (two cars deep, 3 across. In the loaner, I experienced at least 4 cars deep in three lanes, with an impressive visual difference between passenger cars, SUVs, small trucks (box truck), and large tractor trailers. The spatial placement and identification of the surrounding vehicles was still a little buggy, often jumping around or switching types, but the actual detection of a vehicle was accurate and impressive. AP1 just displays the radar lines for blind spots and it's not obvious or attention grabbing. Having a big gray block appear on the IPC is a much better blind spot detection indicator that I wish I had. I'm jealous of the 360 detection and display of the AP2. The jittery display can be fixed in later iterations, but the actual detection appears solid.
From a driving perspective, I was disappointed I couldn't try navigate on AP. The performance of the AP2 with respect to lane placement and steering feels like it's at least on par with AP1. The additional visual provided during automatic lane changes, red lane markings if there's an obstacle, is a welcomed addition. Since this is lacking in my AP1, I sometimes don't know if an auto lane change isn't happening because of a percieved obstacle or some other mysterious reason. AP2 acceleration and deceleration is smooth, but acceleration from a stop is a bit slow (cautious?) I found myself disabling AP2 twice during my commute today because the car wasn't accelerating from a stop, as fast as the traffic in front of me. It's interesting to note the differences in lane detection between AP1 and AP2. In my AP1, lanes are detected and drawn statically. If they're visible and detected, they're shown on the cluster at a static width. I noticed the AP2 is actively drawing the lines, adjusting for lane width. Also, lane detection without line markings was much more prominent in the AP2. My AP1 will sometimes pick up the curb or road edge to use as a line marking, but AP2 did this much more often, like on my long driveway. I mention this because it highlights the power of Tesla's camera heavy approach, compared to Cadillac's super cruise or AP1, providing more flexibility than both.
I questioned if I was going to make this post since there are lots of other comparison accounts already posted, but I wanted to get one point across. Even at 45k miles on my 2016 Model X, it still feels new, years beyond other manufacturers 2018 offerings. In the two years of development and refinement, this 2018 Model X 75D makes my 2016 feel old. It's not just the 2 years of wear and tear, since my car is still in excellent condition. I think the peppiness of the new center stack MCU and the features and functionality of AP2 provide the strongest feeling of improvement and make my 2016 seem just a little lacking. It's been stated that Tesla doesn't really do traditional model year refreshes so it's interesting that while most things are the same, there's enough difference sense like this is a MY18 vehicle and mine is a MY16. It's crazy to think about what Tesla will implement in the next two years.
Thankfully this time, they dropped off a 2018 75D Model X with about 1100 miles on the odo. It has a similar configuration to mine, with the winter and tow package. I don't keep abreast of all the latest changes, but this one has AP2. I didn't see navigate on autopilot and I don't know if it's because it hasn't been pushed to the Model X or if it's because this isn't HW 2.5+ or whatever, but I did see the release note for TeslaCam.
Having this loaner affords me the opportunity to compare how far the Model X development has come in the short two years since I purchased mine. I'm the kind of person to keep a vehicle for its full life so it's kind of mind boggling how quickly things have changed.
Exterior
Besides the AP2 cameras, no other changes are super obvious. Build quality is on par with mine, which is excellent. No issues with panel gaps or paint quality. I have the original Catalina white and the loaner is the black multicoat. There are some minor body changes in the mating surface of the Falcon Wing doors. I have some rubbing issues between the door and jamb towards the rear of the vehicle that has cause some paint to wear away. The body panel in the loaner has been reshaped with a flat landing to address this issue. The auto opening doors sound different when opening. There's a less harsh latching sound and the pusher sounds smoother, but this might be due to age differences; newer cars sound more solid. The trunk struts have a mechanical buzzing and pneumatic woosh, which it the same as mine, but I always wondered it the buzz was normal. The spoiler was fixed, which is too bad because I love my moving spoiler. I couldn't find any other exterior differences.
Interior
The front windshield is different. I always wear sunglasses with polarized lenses and it seems like Tesla changed something in the polarizing lamination, as I can see the purple and gold color of other cars front windshield, and some paints look like they have a color shifting effect as I drive by them. The double headlight glare from oncoming vehicles also wasn't apparent but I haven't had much time night driving.
I have the interior premium package on mine, which has Alcantara head and dash liners. The loaner doesn't have it on the dash, but it does have an Alcantara like material on the pilars and headliner so it looks like it's configured with the black premium package. I thought they moved away from Alcantara, so if it's different, it's very close in feel. Compared to my 2016, there's an additional wood panel on the center sliding door that mine doesn't have. The seats are non-perforated leather as the seat cooling option was removed. The falcon wing doors are operated with a push button switch, which is much better than my lever. I've read that I could switch this out.
The seat backs and sides are matte plastic compared to my shiny, which looks nice and probably wears better. The loaner is a 6 seater, compared to my 7, and they're still mounted on monopods. I can see the appeal of the 6 seater since it allows much easier access and legroom to the third row. My kids loved being able to climb back there without hopping over the seats and the rear visibility is much better without a middle headrest getting in the way. The third row seats operated the same as mine and didn't have any obvious differences. The sides of the trunk space was wider, removing the never-used rear shelf support and adding some kind of a plastic vent.
Driveability
Interestingly, the 90% charging level in the 75D was very close to my P90D at 209mi vs 213mi. The 100% charge was about 15 miles less at 220mi vs my 235mi. The 75D was quick, but noticeably slower under hard acceleration without the insane mode. the 75D just didn't have the same punch when accelerating at speed.
Coming from and being very comfortable with AP1, I was excited to try AP2. Also, being a software engineer that works on clusters, I was excited to see the differences in HMI and graphics. AP1 is great and I got what I paid for, but let me tell you, visually, it feels like low tech compared to AP2. First I'll talk about visuals, then go on to performance. IPC graphics are markedly different from AP1 to AP2. The displayed vehicle is smaller to allow for more vehicle display around the car. My AP1 can see about 6 cars in front of it in three lanes (two cars deep, 3 across. In the loaner, I experienced at least 4 cars deep in three lanes, with an impressive visual difference between passenger cars, SUVs, small trucks (box truck), and large tractor trailers. The spatial placement and identification of the surrounding vehicles was still a little buggy, often jumping around or switching types, but the actual detection of a vehicle was accurate and impressive. AP1 just displays the radar lines for blind spots and it's not obvious or attention grabbing. Having a big gray block appear on the IPC is a much better blind spot detection indicator that I wish I had. I'm jealous of the 360 detection and display of the AP2. The jittery display can be fixed in later iterations, but the actual detection appears solid.
From a driving perspective, I was disappointed I couldn't try navigate on AP. The performance of the AP2 with respect to lane placement and steering feels like it's at least on par with AP1. The additional visual provided during automatic lane changes, red lane markings if there's an obstacle, is a welcomed addition. Since this is lacking in my AP1, I sometimes don't know if an auto lane change isn't happening because of a percieved obstacle or some other mysterious reason. AP2 acceleration and deceleration is smooth, but acceleration from a stop is a bit slow (cautious?) I found myself disabling AP2 twice during my commute today because the car wasn't accelerating from a stop, as fast as the traffic in front of me. It's interesting to note the differences in lane detection between AP1 and AP2. In my AP1, lanes are detected and drawn statically. If they're visible and detected, they're shown on the cluster at a static width. I noticed the AP2 is actively drawing the lines, adjusting for lane width. Also, lane detection without line markings was much more prominent in the AP2. My AP1 will sometimes pick up the curb or road edge to use as a line marking, but AP2 did this much more often, like on my long driveway. I mention this because it highlights the power of Tesla's camera heavy approach, compared to Cadillac's super cruise or AP1, providing more flexibility than both.
I questioned if I was going to make this post since there are lots of other comparison accounts already posted, but I wanted to get one point across. Even at 45k miles on my 2016 Model X, it still feels new, years beyond other manufacturers 2018 offerings. In the two years of development and refinement, this 2018 Model X 75D makes my 2016 feel old. It's not just the 2 years of wear and tear, since my car is still in excellent condition. I think the peppiness of the new center stack MCU and the features and functionality of AP2 provide the strongest feeling of improvement and make my 2016 seem just a little lacking. It's been stated that Tesla doesn't really do traditional model year refreshes so it's interesting that while most things are the same, there's enough difference sense like this is a MY18 vehicle and mine is a MY16. It's crazy to think about what Tesla will implement in the next two years.
