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Thoughts About the Model X from a Model S Owner
Here’s a little story about my journey to becoming a Model X owner. I started my search for a new car roughly two years ago to replace my aging Acura MDX SUV. Gas prices were at an all time high back then and having a monthly expenditure of $600 for transportation was something I could surely do away with. I did my fair share of research on hybrids in hopes I would eventually choose one as a replacement car, but ultimately dismissed them as an alternative due to the complexities of the powertrain. That was until I ran into Tesla and its Model X. The rest was history.
The Model X Promise
I finally narrowed my search among hybrids and EVs to Tesla’s Model X. The Model S was already available for order at the time and the Model X was still coming soon. I’d driven SUVs for the last 14 years and had an affinity towards them. Needing to survive through the New England winters, while living on a farm with an expanding family, naturally skewed my pursuits for a SUV as it seemed to be the right fit for my lifestyle. Although I had already fallen in love with the Model S, I managed to curb any desires to purchase one and waited patiently on the Model X through much of the second half of 2013 and early 2014.
That was until the Model X delivery estimate began to slip from “early 2014” to “late 2014”, and then again to “second quarter 2015” (it would be postponed yet again later on). I eventually got the hint that the Model X wasn’t going to roll off the production line anytime soon. To make matters worse, my aging SUV was surpassing 200K miles and my kid was becoming of driving age and was to receive the hand-me-down SUV.
Full-size bike stored in the back of a Model S
I really wanted the Model X but inevitably I started to think about whether the Model S could satisfy my criteria for a new car, as follows:
- Must have plenty of room for carrying around luggage, sports gear, bikes, farm stuff, etc.
- Something I could drive all year round and has maximum safety
- Must have enough room for seven people
I left off the need to have a towing package on my must-have list because in my seven years and 200k miles of ownership on the Acura MDX, I never used its built-in towing capabilities once. The MDX had more than ample space for bikes, which I would place inside the car, and roof mounted equipment using the roof rack.
I watched countless Bjorn Nyland videos and ones from Tesla, so much that I was thoroughly convinced that the Model S (real wheel drive was the only option at the time) could be driven in the harshest of winter environments.
My thoughts around owning a seven seater started to dissipate. When my daughter was young, I would haul her and a pack of her friends around in a seven passenger vehicle. But as she grew up and no longer needed rides other than for a few close friends and her boyfriend (sigh), having a vehicle to seat seven became less of a requirement.
And for that reason, I forewent my Model X and ordered the Model S instead during March of 2014. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in life.
Longing for the Model X
Despite being happily committed to my Model S as a relatively new owner, I still couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the Model X and ultimately ended up putting down a reservation for one once the Design Studio became available. I had convinced myself that a SUV is what I really wanted from the get go. Perhaps I’d trade my Model S in for the X but I still had time to figure that out.
I had also justified placing a deposit on the Model X because my wife’s SUV, a ML 350 diesel, was starting to experience a lot of mechanical and maintenance issues despite being only 20K miles old (we bought it used). I figured that the X would serve as a great replacement vehicle because frankly I was sick of maintaining her SUV.
Finally, Hello Model X
Nearly two years after I was introduced to the Model X online, I finally witnessed its unveiling, along with the rest of the world, via the Model X online test drive videos. The reactions to it seem generally mixed according to friends that attended the Model X launch event. Don’t get me wrong, the Model X is an amazing and transformative vehicle, but to me I felt that I could not obtain much utility from it over what my Model S is already capable of providing.
Sure I’d love to have all wheel drive, autopilot, and being able to open falcon wing doors in tight parking spaces, but even those features aren’t radically different than newer versions of the Model S, less the falcon wing doors.
Model X panoramic windshield
The Model X panoramic windshield is cool although I’m not sure I’d welcome that much sunlight on me while driving. The ‘bio weapon defense mode‘ seems gimmicky to me and a feature that feels cooler to talk about than it would live out in the real world.
The falcon wing doors are amazing and unique but I can’t help but think that its complexity will lead to long term maintenance problems for Tesla. And after all the challenges faced with creating the rad falcon wing doors, they compounded difficulties by creating auto opening front doors. And what about the active rear spoiler? Why is it deployed in all pictures? Will it ever retract?
What surprised me the most during Elon’s 30 minute presentation on the Model X was the amount of time he spent describing the vehicle’s safety rating and air filtration capabilities. Compare this presentation to an Apple product launch event that’s typically packed with detailed specifications and you’re left feeling a bit underwhelmed. Does anyone know the cargo room for the Model X? How wide is it? How tall? How long? What is the max height of the falcon wing doors? Do all the seats fold flat? A car that costs over $132,000 shouldn’t have details as vague as they are.
We caught glimpses of Firmware 7.0 features on the Model X, but there’s still no official word from Tesla that a new interface will be launched with the Model X.
My Future with the Model X
Electric vehicles are the future and Tesla is clearly leading the way in this new vertical. From the Roadster, to the Model S, and to the Model X, Tesla continues to innovate and redefine what an automobile should be like.
While I still have my Model X reservation, I want to know a lot more about it, touch it and maybe even drive it before I decide on the fate of my reservation. Fortunately, my wife’s SUV started behaving as of late, and I’m also very happy with my Model S. Now is probably not the best time for me to pick up a new Model X, but I can easily see a day when all my cars will be electric powered — and made by Tesla.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a miss on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, delivering 358,023 vehicles and building 408,386 cars during the three-month span.
As Tesla transitions more toward AI and sees itself as less of a car company, expectations for deliveries will begin to become less of a central point in the consensus of how the quarter is perceived.
Nevertheless, Tesla is leaning on its strong foundation as a car company to carry forward its AI ambitions. The first quarter is a good ground layer for the rest of the year.
Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Results
Tesla’s Earnings Results are as follows:
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.41 Reported vs. $0.36 Expected
- Revenues – $22.387 billion vs. $22.35 billion Expected
- Free Cash Flow – $1.444 billion
- Profit – $4.72 billion
Tesla beat analyst expectations, so it will be interesting to see how the stock responds. IN the past, we’ve seen Tesla beat analyst expectations considerably, followed by a sharp drop in stock price.
On the same token, we’ve seen Tesla miss and the stock price go up the following trading session.
Tesla will hold its Q1 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/pkYIaGJ32y
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 22, 2026
News
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
In the span of just months in early 2026, SpaceX has transformed itself into one of the world’s most ambitious AI companies. The catalyst: its February acquisition of xAI.
When Elon Musk founded Tesla in 2003, it was a plucky electric car startup betting everything on lithium-ion batteries and a niche luxury Roadster.
Two decades later, Tesla is far more than a car company. Its valuation increasingly hinges on Full Self-Driving software, the Optimus humanoid robot, the Robotaxi program, and the Dojo supercomputer cluster purpose-built for AI training.
Musk has repeatedly described Tesla as an AI and robotics company that happens to sell vehicles. The cars, in this view, are merely the first scalable platform for real-world AI.
Now, SpaceX is tracing an eerily similar path, only faster and in a direction almost no one anticipated. Founded in 2002 to make spaceflight routine and eventually multiplanetary, SpaceX spent its first two decades perfecting reusable rockets, landing Falcon 9 boosters, and building the Starlink megaconstellation.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
It was an engineering and manufacturing powerhouse, not a software play. Yet, in the span of just months in early 2026, SpaceX has transformed itself into one of the world’s most ambitious AI companies. The catalyst: its February acquisition of xAI.
The xAI deal, announced on February 2, was structured as an all-stock transaction that valued the combined entity at roughly $1.25 trillion—SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. In a memo to employees, Musk framed the merger as the creation of “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth.”
The new SpaceX now owns Grok, the large language model family that powers the chatbot of the same name, along with xAI’s massive training infrastructure. More importantly, it has a declared mission to move AI compute off-planet.
Earth-based data centers are hitting hard limits on power, cooling, and land. Musk’s solution is orbital data centers, or constellations of solar-powered satellites that act as supercomputers in the sky.
SpaceX has already asked regulators for permission to launch up to one million such satellites. Starship, the company’s fully reusable heavy-lift vehicle, is the only rocket capable of delivering the necessary mass at the required cadence.
Each orbital node would enjoy near-constant sunlight, vast radiator surfaces for passive cooling, and zero terrestrial real-estate costs. Musk has predicted that within two to three years, space-based AI inference and training could become cheaper than anything possible on the ground.
This is not a side project; it is the strategic centerpiece Musk has envisioned for SpaceX. Starlink already provides the global low-latency backbone; next-generation V3 satellites will carry onboard AI accelerators. Rockets deliver the hardware, while AI optimizes every aspect of launch, landing, and constellation management.
The feedback loop is self-reinforcing, too. Better AI makes better rockets, which launch more AI infrastructure.
Just yesterday, on April 21, SpaceX doubled down.
It secured an option to acquire Cursor—the fast-growing AI coding tool beloved by software engineers—for $60 billion later this year, or pay a $10 billion partnership fee if the full deal does not close.
Cursor’s models already help engineers write code at superhuman speed. Pairing that technology with SpaceX’s Colossus-scale training clusters (the same ones powering Grok) positions the company to dominate AI developer tools, much as Tesla dominates autonomous driving software.
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The parallels with Tesla are striking. Both companies began in a single, capital-intensive sector: Tesla with EVs, SpaceX with launch vehicles. Both used early hardware success to fund AI at scale. Tesla’s Dojo supercomputers train neural nets on billions of miles of real-world driving data; SpaceX now trains on telemetry from thousands of orbital assets and re-entries.
Tesla’s FSD chip runs inference on cars; SpaceX’s future satellites will run inference in orbit.
Tesla’s Optimus robot will work in factories; SpaceX envisions lunar factories manufacturing more AI satellites, eventually using electromagnetic mass drivers to fling them into deep space.
Critics once dismissed Musk’s multi-company empire as unfocused. The 2026 moves reveal the opposite: deliberate convergence.
SpaceX is no longer merely a rocket company that sells internet from space. It is an AI company whose competitive moat is literal orbital infrastructure and the only vehicle that can service it at scale. The forthcoming IPO, expected later this year, will almost certainly be pitched not as a space play but as the purest bet on AI infrastructure the public market has ever seen.
Whether the orbital data-center vision survives regulatory scrutiny, astronomical concerns about light pollution, or the sheer engineering challenge remains to be seen.
Yet the strategic direction is unmistakable. Just as Tesla proved that software and AI could redefine the century-old automobile, SpaceX is proving that rockets are merely the delivery mechanism for the next great computing platform—one that floats above the clouds, powered by the sun, and limited only by the physics of orbit.
In that unexpected sense, history is repeating. Tesla stopped being “just a car company” years ago. SpaceX has now stopped being “just a rocket company.” Both are becoming something far larger: AI powerhouses with hardware moats so deep that competitors will need their own reusable megaconstellations to keep up.
The age of terrestrial AI is ending. The age of space-based AI is beginning—and SpaceX is building the launchpad.
Elon Musk
Tesla Earnings: financial expectations and what we should to hear about
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 this evening after the market closes, and analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s first three months of the year.
Additionally, there will be plenty of things that will be discussed, including the recent expansion of the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) approvals across the globe.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.36, while revenues are expected to come in around $22.35 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.27 and $19.34 billion compared to Tesla’s Q1 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.50 on $29.4 billion of revenue.
Tesla beat analyst expectations last quarter, but the next trading day, the stock fell nearly 3.5 percent. We never quite can gauge how the market will respond to Tesla’s earnings; we’ve seen shares rise on a miss and fall on a beat.
It really goes on the news, and investor consensus, it seems.
What to Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects. Right now, the big focus of investors is the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and what the outlook for Full Self-Driving’s expansion throughout Europe and the rest of the world looks like.
Robotaxi
Tesla just recently expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi program to Dallas and Houston, joining Austin as the first cities in the U.S. to have access to the company’s ride-hailing suite.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Some saw this move as a quick effort to turn attention away from a delivery miss and an anticipated miss on earnings. However, we’ve seen Tesla be more than deliberate with its expansion of the Robotaxi suite, so it’s hard to believe the company would make this move if it were not truly ready to do so.
The company is also working to expand its U.S. ride-hailing service outside of Texas and California, and recently filed paperwork to build a Robotaxi-exclusive Supercharger stall.
Expansion is planned for Florida, Nevada, and Arizona at some point this year, with more states to follow.
Roadster Unveiling
The Roadster unveiling was slated for April 1, and then pushed back (once again) to “probably late April,” according to Elon Musk.
It does not appear that the Roadster unveiling will happen within that time frame, at least not to our knowledge. Nobody has received media or press invites for a Roadster unveiling, and given the lofty expectations set for the vehicle by Musk and Co., it seems like something they’d want to show off to the public.
The Roadster has become a truly frustrating project for Tesla and its fans; evidently, there is something that is not up to the expectations Musk and others have. Meanwhile, fans are essentially waiting for something that is six years late.
At this point, also given the company’s focus on autonomy, it almost seems more worth it to just cancel it, remove any and all timelines and expectations, and surprise people with something crazy down the line, maybe in two or three years. There should be no talk of it.
Full Self-Driving Global Expansion
We expect Musk and Co. to shed some details on where it stands with other European government bodies, as it recently was able to roll out FSD (Supervised) to customers in the Netherlands.
Spain is also working with Tesla to assess FSD’s viability as a publicly available option for owners.
With that being said, there should be some additional information for investors as they listen to the call; no talk of it would be a pretty big letdown.
Optimus
There will likely be a date set for the Gen 3 Optimus unveiling, and we’re hopeful Tesla can keep that date set in stone and meet it. Not reaching timelines is a relatively minor issue, but a company can only do this for so long before its fans and investors start to lose trust and disregard any talk about dates.
It seems this is happening already.
Optimus has been pegged as Tesla’s big money maker for the future. The goals and expectations are high, but it is a privilege to have that sort of pressure when investors know the company’s capability.
Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2026 earnings results: beat on EPS and revenues
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
