I'm not arguing that folding seats aren't practical and useable for people, but I will argue your view that the 'general public' needs/owns a 100k+ SUV. The 'general public' owns a van (if they have kids) or pick up truck for those kinds of cargo needs.
More accurately your statement should be a 'segment' of the premium SUV market needs folding seats for their cargo hauling needs. :wink:
A bit of wider perspective, though:
Due to lack of taxation (and lack of luxury features
), Model S and Model X are actually upper middle class cars in many parts of Europe, like the ever-important Norway. Does someone really think, as well off as Norway is, they would really have such a market for high-end cars? Tesla's relative price on the market is actually fairly affordable, more in the realms of your average middle manager than the CEO.
So not all Model X owners clearly come from that high-end car background - and not even in the U.S. judging by these forums! A lot of people seem to "buy up" (or even way up) to get this kind of a BEV, seeing we have people driving Model S that used to drive a Prius, or people thinking of upgrading very regular-brand SUVs to the Model X. The guy from a Porsche, let alone Bentley seems almost minority.
I'm not personally coming from upper middle class cars to Tesla, but above - hence my dislike for lack of luxury rear features, because I miss them (just not enough) - but I know many are and for them folding second row is par the normal course. Even high-end SUVs usually fold seats, let alone regular SUVs which definitely do.
Personally, I can live without a folding second row, as my daily driver before Model S didn't fold its rear seats at all (although those seats did pretty much everything else) considering they were full of first/business class seating like electronics. I would prefer to do it because the second row makes up for it somehow (some premium feature that precludes folding), though, not just because Tesla was late getting the folding seats done.
But it seems that high-end buyer may not be your average active poster here, despite the price of these cars. I fear Tesla may have an issue in their hands with this market if fully folding rear really is delayed.
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I agree, the question is how many X buyers weren't in the market for a $100k SUV, but if they want an EV SUV they have to pay that premium as the choice is one.
I suspect like the S there will be a fair number of owners that had to stretch there budget a fair bit to get an X, and for those it isn't a cross sell between a loaded SUV, but rather a practical family hauler ICE.
Certainly interesting to see how this goes, especially if the standard car doesn't have foldable seats.
Exactly.
Though, lets not forget, even direct Model X competition - size and price-wise I mean - like Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, BMW X5 and Mercedes Benz GL *all* fold their second rows for a fully flat rear! Tesla even themselves said Audi Q7 was an inspiration of sorts.
Hence I expect Model X will eventually fold the second row too. The question is: How soon or how late? And what does that mean for the current buyer?
