Where is the Model X Test Mule? Is there one?

[NigelM]

It remains unclear to me what I misunderstood. I have no desire or interest in misrepresenting anyone's views.

Ummm, okay. I'll try and it explain it to you:

1. Up-thread there is some wild speculation. Can we agree on that? Or do you think the pictures of UFOs and such are leaks and plants? Alright, so it's a question of degree.
2. I made a joke (with emoticon) that I wouldn't take decisions based on "some of the wild speculation".
3. You launched into a long defense of up-thread analysis claiming that I or others said it was "wild speculation", using those two words as a quote.

It would be just as nonsensical for me to claim you were admitting deliberate provocation when you said:

offence was meant

See?

P.S. I'm done, this parsing of my post and pulling individual words out while ignoring pronouns, conditions and context is enough to drive me away. I wish I'd never made a comment now.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Let's try it this way, Anxiety Ranger, what exactly do you believe is NOT speculation directly related to this thread and the design of the Model X that people could use as a factual basis with which to make a decision about buying or not?

I believe the detective work on the mule imagery is not speculation, for example, but representative of a stage in Model X development (although of course some of that detective work has gone speculative). Some of the leaks - namely the one Tesla had pulled - I would not consider speculation either. With leaks comes the uncertainty of reliability and representativeness (some leaks are plain wrong or fake, others unrepresentative through omission), but then again that is sometimes the case with official information as well. Lumping all information with certain level of uncertainty into speculation doesn't seem fitting to me.

As for helping make decisions on buying or not, the information gleaned pre-release offers insight into the development process and perhaps development stage of a product. This can be useful to a purchase timing decision. Mind you, I am not claiming development steps represent final product results. That is the part where we may enter the speculative realm - and it may certainly require speculation to best use partial pre-release information to make purchasing decisions. This depends on how little or much information there is available and how near or far the release is expected.

Fair enough?

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Ummm, okay. I'll try and it explain it to you:

1. Up-thread there is some wild speculation. Can we agree on that? Or do you think the pictures of UFOs and such are leaks and plants? Alright, so it's a question of degree.
2. I made a joke (with emoticon) that I wouldn't take decisions based on "some of the wild speculation".
3. You launched into a long defense of up-thread analysis claiming that I or others said it was "wild speculation", using those two words as a quote.

It would be just as nonsensical for me to claim you were admitting deliberate provocation when you said:

1. I certainly acknowledge my misunderstanding of this, as I already did. As I explained, the entirety of your message made me misunderstand originally and later bonnie's comment about everything being speculation reinforced my thoughts as you guys seem to agree with many things.
2. The joke is acknowledged, but I didn't understand it that way at the time. Judging by the responses I got, I'm not sure others understood it that way either - the thread evolved into a discussion with others that definitely were in disagreement with myself, apparently far more than you were.
3. At least some of what you feel was a long defense was just my attempt at explaining my response and context to another poster.

Text is as hard medium. My apologies for misunderstanding you post.

 

[Fanatic]

Tesla Model X in the wild RT: Tesla Suv out for a ride on 280, aka the test track. Nick Reed on Twitter:

 

[Ufrugger]

Photo from the Twitter link.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Thank you for the great find.

There are actually two photos on the Twitter link!

 

[Fanatic]

Thank you for the great find.

There are actually two photos on the Twitter link!

Obsessed.. Elon is my god. wish there was more pics on the gigafactory build..

 

[AnxietyRanger]

They got these photos and no photos of the leakedly revised front again?

 

[Krugerrand]

Fair enough?

Honestly, that read like a lot of nothing.

The 'leaked' photo/s were posted here for literally minutes. Only a handful of people saw them, they were incomplete from what I read about them, and showed nothing much of substance nor anything concrete. So how exactly did those photos provide anything of value? Even if we agree it was technically representative of a stage of Model X development, in what way has it solidified the final appearance of the Model X such that someone could make a decision about purchasing it? The very fact it's not final means it may look absolutely nothing like the photos. So why bother putting any energy into it? Do you honestly think of the handful of people who saw an incomplete/partial drawing for a few minutes said, "Well that does it! I'm cancelling my Model X reservation because I don't like the current representative stage of the Model X development!"...or whatever.

I know you like to pick things apart and take them down to the molecular level, and that kind of approach certainly has value at specific times and places. But right now? Concerning what Model X will look like based on camouflage, fake body panels and gobs of duct? tape? You did read that thread where some people claimed the Model X looked like a Prius, right? Do you honestly think Tesla is going to unveil an SUV/COV that is a Prius lookalike? Or that making it look like a Prius was representative of a stage of Model X development? *We* couldn't even come to a consensus if the wheelbase was different than the Model S.

There just hasn't been enough of anything, for anyone to conclusively or sort of/maybe/possibly say the Model S will have this, be that, look like such and such. *We* can't even tell with any certainty if it'll have a nose cone or not. I am pretty sure, though, that it won't look like a Prius or a Gremlin, but that hardly narrows it done.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Honestly, that read like a lot of nothing.

The 'leaked' photo/s were posted here for literally minutes. Only a handful of people saw them, they were incomplete from what I read about them, and showed nothing much of substance nor anything concrete. So how exactly did those photos provide anything of value? Even if we agree it was technically representative of a stage of Model X development, in what way has it solidified the final appearance of the Model X such that someone could make a decision about purchasing it? The very fact it's not final means it may look absolutely nothing like the photos. So why bother putting any energy into it? Do you honestly think of the handful of people who saw an incomplete/partial drawing for a few minutes said, "Well that does it! I'm cancelling my Model X reservation because I don't like the current representative stage of the Model X development!"...or whatever.

I know you like to pick things apart and take them down to the molecular level, and that kind of approach certainly has value at specific times and places. But right now? Concerning what Model X will look like based on camouflage, fake body panels and gobs of duct? tape? You did read that thread where some people claimed the Model X looked like a Prius, right? Do you honestly think Tesla is going to unveil an SUV/COV that is a Prius lookalike? Or that making it look like a Prius was representative of a stage of Model X development? *We* couldn't even come to a consensus if the wheelbase was different than the Model S.

There just hasn't been enough of anything, for anyone to conclusively or sort of/maybe/possibly say the Model S will have this, be that, look like such and such. *We* can't even tell with any certainty if it'll have a nose cone or not. I am pretty sure, though, that it won't look like a Prius or a Gremlin, but that hardly narrows it done.

I think there is a certain level of misunderstanding all around in our messaging. I certainly misunderstood NigelM as well, it seems. I was doing two things: 1) Expressing my opinion that leaks and mule footage is not speculation, I think that is an unnecessarily dismissive word for those and it is good to separate mere speculation from unofficial information. 2) Making broad observations about the value of pre-release information gathering in deciding whether or not to wait for a product or go for an alternative. I got the feeling from some posters on the thread that these kinds of threads are useless speculation overall, hence I offered my opinion on why I don't think that is. It was more of general musings on my part, to do with any technology product.

In any case, we have new photos to nitpick - why not move onto that! I'm doing that here...

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Here is my message that started it all:

This and its kind is a waiting thread for a product in development, filtering whatever information can for amusement, anticipation and time killing as well as decision making (to wait or not). It is not the first, nor is it the last of its ilk in the world, and by far it isn't the most useless either - despite the high UFO image to info ratio.

When the next Tesla model release rolls around, information gathered from previous development processes may help provide some potential clues.

That said, everything in life serves its purpose for a time and time only. That goes for this thread - and it goes for you and me as well...

I would like to highlight that the things I mentioned first are the ones I also held most important, even though it was the latter part of the first chapter that got the most attention - I never meant to make too big a deal of it. Pre-release information has some decision-making value, but I never meant to suggest a CAD drawing from an accessory manufacturer is a decision maker or breaker.

 

[Twiddler]

This is getting ridiculous. Here we have actual thread specific photos being quickly buried by childish bickering back and forth. Mods? Help??

 

[AnOutsider]

View attachment 73663Photo from the Twitter link.

Looks a bit sleeker there in that pic. Nice find!

 

[MikeL]

Ok so I'm in. That's definately A car. We have NO way of knowing if it's THE car. (Looks good btw) there are Model X beta testers being driven around, yes? On the streets with us? Is that one of them? Probably (?) looks EXACTLY the same as all of the old alphas, except for the wheels, of which I am not a fan . Ready AnxietyRanger ... Set ... GO

 

[ohmman]

I'm guessing this is identical to the other photos, but I like it better. Probably just the white, which I'll likely choose again. But I'm still a buyer with this look. I like that even "whited out" it still screams Tesla.

 

[Aljohn]

Ah Ha... who bent the Hwy Sign. Another conspiracy trying to throw us off the location.

Nice pics... confirms they are testing at least two.... I'll drive around Atlanta and look.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Make sure to look at the second pic on that Twitter feed too. This picture also has that funky non-alignment between the driver window and the falcon door. Are all their beta cars messed up, or are we seeing the same beta car?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Second picture from the latest Twitter spy shot.

 

[ohmman]

Second picture from the latest Twitter spy shot.

Thank you.

 

[MikeL]

Nice pics... confirms they are testing at least two.... I'll drive around Atlanta and look.

ha ! I like the Atlanta optimism. But I gotta say, it seriously doesn't confirm anything. Crazy? Maybe but Tesla is not normal. They cannot be expected to behave "normally" (which is good, and better). I am not making any ascertations about who is doing what, just saying that those cool stamps for the many MIGHT end up being different from the ones we have seen for the few. BUT!, keep in mind it was quite a while ago Franz or Elon or JB or ? said design is done, we are just working on little aerodynamic tweaks. Thanks for allowing me the paraphrase & the no link ML

it does have that trailer hitch. Can't wait to time 0-60 pulling my BOAT ! seriously

 

[brianman]

Warning: boring mathematician alert...
So in mathematical logic there is this beautiful rule that says that any conclusion drawn from an incorrect assumption is correct.

"If the moon was made of green cheese, then 1 = 2" is a correct statement.

Newsflash, that doesn't make "1 = 2" a correct statement.

What am I trying to say? Don't use assumptions as input for your decisions if you aren't pretty darn certain that the assumptions are correct.

So this is a long and boring way (hey, I'm half way across the Atlantic on an 11h flight... what else do I have to do?) of saying "yep, I agree AIMc"

if (false)
{
    // anything
}

 

[Twiddler]

Looks like heading north on 280, right around the corner from Tesla. Google Earth even shows the bent sign -