News24
20 Sep 2020, 23:40 GMT+10
Tesla was less than 20 months removed from its initial public offering and hadn't delivered its first Model S sedans when Musk unveiled a prototype of the Model X, which he said would go into production in late 2013.
The crossover SUV arrived almost a full two years late, with the first customers getting them in September 2015. The first thing he called attention to at the Model X unveiling-its double-hinged "falcon wing" doors-later slowed the SUV's rollout, and Musk would later blame disappointing deliveries on the "hubris" of trying to do too much with the vehicle.
Musk claimed during the unveiling that the doors didn't go any higher than a normal SUV's rear hatchback, but some customers opened them into the ceiling of their garage. The Model X has consistently scored poorly in Consumer Reports rankings while Tesla's other vehicles have scored well.
Battery Swap - June 2013
The CEO announced that all cars produced in the two weeks leading up to the event had been built with radar, image-recognition cameras and ultrasonic sonar installed.
Tesla Energy - May 2015
The missing piece, Tesla's $3,500 Powerwall, "looks like a beautiful sculpture on the wall", he said. Customers wouldn't have to worry about running out of power and could go off the grid. The product could scale globally and be of particular use in remote parts of the world where there's intermittent or expensive electricity.
READ | Elon Musk loses record $16.3bn with wild wealth swings
Tesla managed to follow through on a lot of the specifications Musk promised for the Model 3, including at least 215 miles of range. He drew laughs from the crowd by alluding to his propensity for missing deadlines when announcing the timing of initial deliveries: "I do feel fairly confident that it will be next year".
Solar Roof - October 2016
Semi, Roadster - December 2017
Model Y - March 2019
To Tesla's credit, the Model Y arrived much earlier than scheduled. Musk said at the time of this event that the crossover would start reaching customers in the fall of 2020. That timeline was accelerated to March.
"We expect to have the first operating robotaxis next year," he said.
Tesla would take a 25% to 30% cut of the revenue. Within roughly two years, Musk predicted, the company would stop building its cars with steering wheels or pedals.
A demonstration of how tough the truck's stainless steel "exoskeleton" went well, with the doors sustaining several blows without denting. But an attempt to show off the strength of its transparent-metal "armour" glass went disastrously - a metal ball shattered both the first- and second-row windows.
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