The Tesla Model X has arrived in Australia
Tesla's attempt at the family SUV has finally arrived Down Under.
On Wednesday, the electric car company officially launched the Model X in Australia. In case you didn't know which demographic it's hoping to target, Tesla has pitched the car as more family-friendly than its Model S model, talking up its ability to seat seven adults, complete with up to four child seat attachments.
"The fact the we haven't got the 6 or 7-seater Model S in this country makes the X a bigger drawcard for larger families or those that do want that extra space," Heath Walker, Tesla' communications manager in Australia, told reporters Wednesday at the launch event in Sydney.
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He did not believe the arrival of the Model X would steal buyers from the Model S. "They are two separate markets, so most people would be one or the other and we're seeing that in the orders to date," he said.
"I'm no forecaster, but I think based on industry figures, the luxury SUV market is only growing, so demand generally for SUVs in this country is a graph that's growing straight up."
Not that you'd need it to take the kids to soccer, but the Model X's top model, the P100D in Ludicrous mode, can get from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 3.1 seconds. It also has a battery range of 542 kilometres, down to 467 kilometres in the P90D model.
Perhaps the most striking visual feature of the car is its falcon wings, which are intended to let passengers exit the car in the tightest of parking spots. The company had some trouble with the doors initially, however, with some drivers reporting they wouldn't open or close thanks to software glitches.
The car, which Mashable's reviewer called "the paradigm of over-engineering," even has a bioweapon defence mode.
Signature owners (people who reserved the car first) should have their Model X delivered by the end of the year, a Tesla spokesperson told Mashable Australia.
For those with A$120,000 to A$200,000 to spare today, the estimated delivery date for new reservations is 2017. Local pricing for the P100D Model X is yet to be announced.
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
