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A look at who’s buying Tesla’s Model X: younger, richer, and outside of CA

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A recent study taking a look at vehicle registration data for Model X reveals that younger and more affluent customers are buying Tesla’s crossover SUV. Research conducted by Edmunds showed that the concentration of Model X buyers were, fittingly, from the Generation X crowd – a generation between the ages of 35-54 and nestled between Baby Boomers and Millennials. Not surprisingly, the Model X skewed more towards women who are presumably Moms with young children. By contrast, the Silicon Valley automaker’s first volume production sedan, the Model S, skewed towards older males who are generally early adopters to new technology.

The new study suggests that Tesla’s plan to broaden its reach to a more diverse audience is succeeding. Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ Executive Director of Business Analytics said in a press release, “If Tesla is going to succeed over the long term, it needs to break through to all shoppers and not just rich early adopters who tend to skew older and male,” The data is a positive indicator that Tesla’s more affordable mass market Model 3 will have an even wider consumer reach when it goes into production at the end of 2017. “The company certainly has a long way to go with affordability, but Model X has undeniably brought in more female buyers and Gen X’ers to the Tesla brand. That’s an encouraging sign as Tesla takes a make-or-break plunge into the mainstream market with the upcoming Model 3.”, says Caldwell.

Source: Polk via Edmunds

Looking at 5,523 Model X and 4,242 Model S registrations recorded during each model’s first nine months on market, Edmunds was able to see that 30% of Model X buyers were women, more than doubling the number of women registrants on the Model S at 14%. The West Coast still leads in terms of having the most Model X registrations accounting for 55% of total sales, however this is down from the 64% of Model S sales originating from California, Washington and Oregon. Wisconsin, which previously only accounted for .3% of Model S sales, showed the most noticeable increase of Tesla ownership with 2% of Model X sales originating from the Badger State.

The majority of Model X buyers are also wealthier than Model S buyers with 87% of owners reporting incomes greater than $100,000. By comparison, 78% of Model S buyers surpassed a six-figure income.

While the stats provide an interesting look at how the Model X demographic of buyers compares with Model S, Edmunds’ chart also provides valuable insight on how Tesla’s pricey electric crossover SUV compares to other vehicles within its class.

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Source: Polk via Edmunds
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Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a Friday launch

The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a launch on Friday.

The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.

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The Model Y Performance became a big-time hit after it packed the family-style interior with lightning-fast acceleration, speed, and handling.

As Tesla transitioned the Model Y into the updated “Juniper” design, the company took its time to create an even better vehicle with the new Performance configuration.

It has surely taken its time, but the vehicle appears to have undergone some exterior changes to enhance aerodynamics, handling, and overall performance.

We recently went into what was different about the test units spotted at Nurburgring in an article, but we’ll also list them here:

  • New 21″ wheels
  • All black headliner, a big change that was included in the Model Y L, the first time a Model Y has had that option
  • Updated brakes
  • Bucket seats that appear to be similar to the new Model Y L in China
  • New Carbon Fiber Spoiler
  • Performance Badging
  • Changes to both the front and rear bumper
  • Suspension with Adaptive Dampers

Tesla Model Y Performance zips around Nurburgring with new features

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It does not seem like there’s much else it could be, but it is important to note that Tesla has been developing a handful of affordable models. There is a possibility that Tesla could launch one of these on Friday, but it seems unlikely.

The affordable models will likely be coming to the United States or China before they would in Europe.

They would be developed at Gigafactory Texas or Gigafactory Shanghai. The company stated in its Q2 Earnings Shareholder Deck that it had continued to expand its vehicle offerings and successfully manufactured the first builds of a more affordable model in June.

Volume production is planned for the second half of 2025.

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SpaceX Starship Flight 10 was so successful, it’s breaking the anti-Musk narrative

That’s all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

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Credit: Elon Musk/X

Starship Flight 10 was a huge success for SpaceX. When both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship Upper Stage successfully landed on their designated splashdown zones, the space community was celebrating.

The largest and most powerful rocket in the world had successfully completed its tenth test flight. And this time around, there were no rapid unscheduled disassemblies during the mission.

As per SpaceX in a statement following Flight 10, “every major objective was met, providing critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy.” The private space enterprise also stated that Flight 10 provided valuable data by stressing the limits of Starship’s capabilities.

With all of Flight 10’s mission objectives met, one would think that it would be pretty easy to cover the story of Starship’s successful tenth test flight. But that’s where one would be wrong, because Elon Musk companies, whether it be Tesla or SpaceX or xAI, tend to attract negative slant from mainstream media outlets.

This was in full force with Starship Flight 10’s coverage. Take the BBC’s Facebook post about the fight test, which read “Elon Musk’s giant rocket, earmarked for use in a 2027 mission to the Moon, has had multiple catastrophic failures in previous launches.” CNN was more direct with its slant, writing “SpaceX’s troubled Starship prototype pulls off successful flight after months of explosive mishaps” on its headline. 

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While some media outlets evidently adopted a negative slant towards Starship’s Flight 10 results, several other media sources actually published surprisingly positive articles about the successful test flight. The most notable of which is arguably the New York Times, which featured a headline that read “SpaceX’s Giant Mars Rocket Completes Nearly Flawless Test Flight.” Fox News also ran with a notably positive headline that read “SpaceX succeeds at third Starship test flight attempt after multiple scrubs.”

Having covered Elon Musk-related companies for the better part of a decade now, I have learned that mainstream coverage of any of his companies tends to be sprinkled with varying degrees of negative slant. The reasons behind this may never be fully explained, but it is just the way things are. This is why, when milestones such as Starship’s Flight 10 actually happen and mainstream media coverage becomes somewhat objective, I can’t help but be amazed. 

After all, it takes one heck of a company led by one heck of a leader to force objectivity on an entity that has proven subjective over the years. And that, if any, is all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

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Tesla’s Elon Musk takes another shot at Waymo’s capabilities stemming from LiDAR

“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation.”

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has frequently expressed his opinions on LiDAR in the past, but in recent days, the EV maker’s frontman has continued to discuss the weaknesses in the technology and why his company has relied on cameras.

He also mentioned the suite’s limits on Waymo’s capabilities.

Tesla completely abandoned using radar alongside its camera suite a few years ago, something it referred to as “Tesla Vision” at the time. For its vehicles, it has only used cameras since this transition, and Musk has never once shied away from this strategy.

Earlier this week, he discussed the reliance of LiDAR and radar by other companies:

“Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?

This sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased, risk. That’s why Waymos can’t drive on highways.

We turned off radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.”

Elon Musk argues lidar and radar make self driving cars more dangerous

He continued with this narrative again and mentioned Waymo specifically on a second occasion.

Musk’s focus this time was on Waymo vehicles and their capabilities in adverse weather, specifically snow, rain, or even dust storms, and how LiDAR struggles to navigate in these conditions.

He said:

“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation. As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX Dragon docking with Space Station. I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses.”

Tesla’s approach is significantly different than most companies. Waymo, Motional, Aurora, and Zoox all use LiDAR for their self-driving programs, while Tesla continues to rely on its camera-only approach.

Musk even said that Model S and Model X utilized a Tesla-developed high-resolution radar, but it could not “compare to passive optical (cameras), so we turned it off.”

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