After looking through the photos and videos, here's my personal take on the Model X, with some questions :-
FALCON DOOR THOUGHTS :-
• I wish they have been brave and gone with full width 'falcon' door. See my mockup… But the design of the folding falcon door has the potential to cause problems.
• Do the doors rising / opening have any form of detection for obstructions ? .. are they going to power themselves into low garage ceilings, or up into remote-control garage doors? or leave a nice door impression on the car parked next to it ?
• Do the doors have some sort of automated seal that inflates to seal the door from wind noise ?
• Will the automated door have any rim sensing of obstructions around its closing edges ? I once had a very bad experience in a ford GT40 when the roof section of its suicide door nearly split my skull …
• What happens if there's rain / snow on the roof top and the falcon door tips it all into the car ? Have they designed around this problem ?
• I know that Elon mentions that the overall height of the Falcon door is no more than a raised hatch on an Audi Q7, but this could actually be more than 8ft by the looks of things.
PERFORMANCE VERSION ?
• On the gigaom video interview Elon mentions (at 4m30) that its quicker than a 911C4 but adds "it will still go zero to 60 miles an hour in about 4.4 seconds, and that’s not even the Performance model". Sounds very interesting to me ! Since the Model X is essentially a Model S platform with an additional motor, I would have thought that a 'performance' version will be seriously quick. Not sure how many soccer moms would buy that though !
Hands-on video with Tesla Cleantech News and Analysis
MODEL S - 4WD version ?
This seems logically possible given the shared platform between the Model X / S. Hmm, a Model S with 4WD from twin motors - yay
VIRTUAL WING MIRRORS / BULLET CAM …
• Bullet cams replacing big wing mirrors would be welcome by many car manufacturers for aerodynamic reasons amongst others, but existing regulations prevent using bullet cams and screens. However, Elon mentions that if they were used the image would be shown on "the screen". If this was on the giant central screen, this would feel very odd. They could be displayed either side of the main dash instrumentation to give a more normal L/R feel.
• A SOLUTION ? How about using a thin film bright OLED screen, placed on the area of a side window glass that the driver normally looks through to see the wing mirrors. The image displayed would show the view from the Bullet cams ... (hmmm, this seems patentable …)
THE GIANT TOUCHSCREEN ..
• I've not been anywhere near a Model S, but I am curious to know if its any more protected than a 17inch laptop screen ?
• … and will it have any controls on it that a young kid could 'play' with as you're driving ?
And finally, being a watch collector, I noticed Elon was wearing an analog watch with a big T logo on it !
I don't dislike it, but it does not scream "Buy Me ASAP!"
This kind of full width falcon door mockup would make me slap down an order today ... :-