2016 Tesla Model X: Tesla's Electric Crossover Finally Spreads Its Wings

It’s called the Tesla Model X, but it should probably be called “Elon’s Headache.” Behold, finally, Tesla’s two-and-a-half-ton electric sport-utility vehicle that shows, in Elon Musk’s own words, that “I think we got a little carried away.” There are those much-ballyhooed “falcon wing” motorized doors with their multiple hinges and a brace of ultrasonic and capacitive sensors to prevent disaster; the self-opening and -closing front doors; the “monoposto” middle-row seats that put their passengers on stout, movable pedestals; a massive wrap-over windshield that necessitated the world’s most unnecessarily complicated sun visors; and a HEPA cabin filter that, says company founder Elon, creates “hospital operating room cleanliness in the car.”

How does the X drive? Like the Tesla Model S on which much of the parts below the floor are based. Spear-sharp steering and governed body roll make for a grace that utterly belies the extra thousand pounds on the Model X’s back. Owners of a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S would recognize the way the car’s acceleration squishes all six (or seven, depending on the configuration) passengers into their seats—and the way it seems to flaunt physics.

In a short drive around a cone course near Tesla’s manufacturing facility, we drove a Model X P90D, the hyperfast version with the so-called “Ludicrous” acceleration mode. Stated curb weight: 5441 pounds. Towing capacity: 5000 pounds. The driver sits high but the bodywork rises such that it just feels like a Model S on jackstands. The different view is up, where a wave of shaded glass flows over your head, standing in for the windshield-header beam and sun visors on most cars. The sun visors attach to the A-pillar and can be stretched across the cabin to magnetic posts to create a sun shield. The windshield, says Musk, is made from seven layers (“like a tiramisu”), and he also figures it’s the largest piece of glass in a production car.