Place Your BETS! Is The Tesla Model X Going To Be The "IT" Car Of 2016?

I agree with 001. It's going to be huge. BTW, starting price is NOT $132k. That's for the first batch which are all fully loaded. On average, the Model X will retail for $5k more than the equivalent Model S, which starts at $75k.

Right. But until that standard model debuts it's starting at $132k without incentives.

If Mercedes launched the S-Class starting with the S600 it would be said that the S-Class has a base price of $169,050. Until the other model comes to fruition we don't know what it will cost as automakers are known to tweak pricing.

@Agent00R - I will disagree with you, quoting the signature price is still the wrong way to go. The only people who can buy a signature car are only those who pre-ordered it.

And even more we are talking about the IT car of 2016 here, by 2016 it will be available at its base price. Sure the manufacturer might to tweaks to prices here and there, but end of the day it can be easily agreed that the prices will be close to those of the Model S. (or as Musk puts it, 5k more expensive for same config)

Huge with WHO?

While it may have a built in base of Tesla S buyers - I doubt people who actually take their 4x4 off road want to be limited by an electric cord. Unless they have some ingenious way to supply emergency power to someone who has run out in the outback - the car cannot compete with a 5 gallon gas can.

And for those who are do not go off road, the really high price still cannot be justified by residual values - since there are little statistics available for actual trade in Value - AND - those that have to trade in a Model S have another problem - their VALUE will be set by a company - not a local dealer - and that company cannot afford to establish an unsupportable high price - because they is no active Wholesale market for these vehicles.

Other car dealers do not want them - they cannot have their service departments work on them - since Tesla allows no access to their computers to anyone but their dealers. So - in the real automotive world - the Tesla is a dead end - you almost HAVE TO return to Tesla - or take a HUGE hit. Eventually - that will show up in VERY HIGH lease costs - Tesla cannot itself support the market.

With Lower Gas prices - and smarter consumers (Just wait till the go to trade in their S) - there are PLENTY of lower priced competitors out there

I agree with TomM. Aside from the Model X being much too quirky/gimmicky to gain wide acceptance and aside from the stratospheric pricing, the whole value proposition is very much in question.

Tesla is a little like Vladimir Putin's Russia - where the sort of make the story up as they go along and because its a closed loop, no one really has the available facts to question it. I am of the opinion that there really is no residual market for old Teslas - though you can see Tesla's "inventory for sale" number on its public financials growing and growing and growing.

001/00R - can you help settle this question by asking all your autopsies members, many of whom work at Audi/Bmw/MB/Lexus dealers, as to how their stores handle trade-in's of Tesla Model S? Do they get any Tesla trade-ins? I think this is the million dollar question.

If there really is not a secondary, non-subsidized market for the Model S (Tesla's "buy-back" program for its CPO's aside), then I don't see how Tesla is a vehicle manufacturer with any enduring future.

Probably means generating the most buzz.

The market for these cars is not people who go off road, it is the CUV market.

As for its price, the base price is around that of a porche cayanne. And the upper tears can smoke a ferrari.

So far the statistics show the trade in value of the Tesla Model S is doing well above average, the Model X will probably do well too.

Tesla only sets the bottom value of the trade-in, so you would always be able to get higher as a private sale. So far dealers take in the car just fine, but even if they don't, they will only be hurring up their pace to irrelevancy. We don't live in the 1990s where car dealers are the only way to get a new/used car. Personally I have found I make more selling cars on craigslist then through a dealer.

Any Tesla certified 3rd party shop can work on the car. Tesla sends the replacement parts and they install them. The biggest barrier to certification has been able to do aluminum work, with the Ford F150 being aluminum that takes away the biggest barrier to entry.

And please give me the name of any dealer who has access to computers inside the car. That is unheard of. Do they have programmers on staff? All access to the computer is done by the manufacturer.

So you know, the luxury car market in itself has never been about resale value to begin with. The moment you bought a luxury car, resale was never your concern. So your argument in itself makes no sense.

I think a lot of people have caught on that gas prices will not be lower forever. At some point they will rise dramatically as they always have. Whether it be from demand, conflict, trouble in the Persian Gulf, etc etc gas prices will rise again. This doesn't even get into the the fact that solar technology increases conversion power output year after year and technology leaps mean a panel's effective capture ability increases as well. If you are already driving a Tesla you are set to take advantage of the time when gas prices burst through the roof and your BMW X5 driving neighbors are sitting in a block long line at the gas station grumbling to themselves.. And they will. Perhaps sooner rather than later if history is any indicator.

Gas prices could be lower for DECADES if the current regime or the next one would build Keystone.

It will be the Shh..."It" car of 2016 with its ugly, Chinese-clone looking, ill-proportioned styling. The gull wing doors could not be more stupid. Of course, the idiot early adopters will flock to it and buy buy buy at dealer-fixed prices.

It will create interest at the beginning, but I would bet that interest will fade quickly.

lol about Keystone... the exact same rah rah arguments were made about the Alaskan Pipeline.... "low prices forever! " lol.. What a short memory we Americans have. All a Keystone Pipeline does is make it that much easier to export Canadian crude straight out of North America and to the rest of the world. The biggest customer of Keystone will be all those supertankers waiting to load up. This fraud has been the biggest energy policy scam perpetrated on the American Public in recent memory. Big Oil is now a worldwide market. Gone are the days of "keeping it here." Rest assured, Keystone will do nothing to cure gas prices "for decades." Tesla owners will be laughing at all the gas lines should any trouble start to brew up in the Persian Gulf.

Your check from Obama Bin Barack is in the mail.