I took delivery of an April build of a 2022 Model X PLAID 5 days ago, and I have a few observations I thought this community might like to see. I had a 2020 Model X LR before this.
Things I like:
Things I don't like:
("TESLA MODEL X.jpg" by Tokumeigakarinoaoshima is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)
Things I like:
- The UI is noticeably faster and feels like a totally different piece of software than v11 was for the 2020 Intel Atom.
- The animations in the "heads up" display for vehicles, signs etc. are butter smooth.
- Seat coolers! I've always wanted a car that had seat coolers.
- The center console area is way better. It's way more practical than my 2020 X was.
- The cabin is noticeably quieter than the 2020 was. I am guessing this largely due to the thicker glass for the windows.
- You can use your phone as a key or a key card or a key fob. So many options!
- It's FAST. Really fast. It puts a smile on your face every time you floor it.
Things I don't like:
- Noise canceling is a total joke. I'm happy that the cabin is quieter overall, but there is almost no discernable difference between having noise canceling enabled / disabled. I can only hope that this will be improved in future software updates. Again, this "feature" is more than lacking. I'm doubling down on this only because the marketing of "Active Noise Reduction" made it sound like this would be a neat feature.
- Headlights. Where are the MATRIX headlights?? The Sales rep at Tesla told me this VIN has "MATRIX CC" headlights. Pretty sure these are the same headlights from 2020.
- The inside styling of the front doors feels "cheaper" to me. I get that they are going with a cleaner look, but the 2020 Model X was more to my liking. There is cloth on the door now. Why?
- The auto present feature is terrible. I don't know what is going on. This worked really well in 2020 Model X, but it is a 50/50 chance with the 2020 PLAID. The door sometimes opens a little, then never swings open. More annoyingly, the door CANNOT be trusted to auto close. With 2020 Model X you could walk away and know that the door would 100% close on it's own. Not with this door. Also, there is way more resistance with these doors when you manually open. You can hear the gears moving when you manually open the door.
- The capacitive buttons on the steering yoke are terrible. The horn being a capacitive button is terrible. The fact that I have to engage autopilot by pressing a button that doubles as a scroll wheel and triples as a left / right joystick is probably the worst offender of it all. It feels like I am using an Android phone from 2012. I constantly feel like I accidently scrolled the wheel up while trying to engage autopilot.
- My vehicle came with a couple of issues:
- There are audible clicking sounds when turning the wheel. It sounds like something is really tight. Almost as if the clicking is coming from the lower control arms or bearings or something similar.
- There are audible rubbing sounds when turning the steering yoke in certain conditions. Sounds / feels like it's rubbing on another part of the dash or steering column.
- There is an audible sound coming from the right speakers that is hard to describe. For short bursts of time it sounds like a loose ground hum and sometimes like a high/mid-range static sound. It appears to go away, not sure the pattern yet.
- Different from the above description, I have noticed sudden quick pops or pauses when listening to music. It feels like it's somehow related to accelerating or braking, but not sure the pattern yet.
- The sound system. I consider myself an audiophile. My initial impression is that I don't like the sound signature of this system. The sound is clear, very loud and has zero distortion - and yet the sound is overly harsh and difficult to "warm" up. The bass and subwoofer settings are also configured interestingly. Even though you can independently control the subwoofer level in the UI, it is also unexpectedly tied to the bass slider. For example, if you slide the subwoofer levels all the way up, but bring down the non-subwoofer bass slider down, it will directly impact the sound level of the subwoofer. The subwoofer is not one that you really "feel" but instead one that you "hear" too much, which results in really unpleasant listening experience if you are trying to get the system to have bass that can "punch" the low notes. I'm not sure what kind of DAC / EQ chip they are using, but I hope Tesla eventually allows for more refined EQ control of the sound as I think that most of the negative points I described could be fixed with better control of the sound.
- The rear display. Initial impression is that it's cool that there is a screen, but the main display is way larger to look at, even from the rear seats. On the other hand, it is nice for rear passengers to control media, select their own media and control things like climate control and seat warmers.
- The yoke. I am pretty sure I don't like it, but I am trying to give it a shot. Yes, it looks cool. Makes it look futuristic and all. However, it does not add any practical value to driving. In fact, it makes turning objectively worse. Still, willing to give a shot over the coming weeks.
("TESLA MODEL X.jpg" by Tokumeigakarinoaoshima is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)
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