As you no doubt saw, the Tesla Model X was unveiled to much fanfare two nights ago, and at the end of the unveiling, CEO & product architect Elon Musk left his black Tesla Model X (Vin #1) on stage for people to explore the new electric SUV.
Of course, some visitors are more curious than others. A wonderful person (or so I’m guessing) who goes by the handle “spentan” on the Tesla Motors Club forum took a bunch of shots of Elon’s Model X touchscreen — flipping from one screen to the next and taking a shot, it seems. We are very grateful, spentan! Here’s a look at the pictures:
Here are some of my thoughts from perusing the screens:
- First of all, it’s just awesome how sharp, clear, and easy to navigate these screens are. There’s no other car company on the planet with such great touchscreens.
- The reminder that your door is open is nice. I wonder if that does away with the annoying beeping sound that cars typically have when a door is open/ajar.
- Elon likes to drive with the suspension very low? No surprise there. 😀
- Nice that it has a “Jack” suspension option. I imagine that’s also on the Model S as well as other nice cars.
- “Slip Start” looks like a very nice feature to have, especially on a “utility” vehicle like this.
- Either Elon is not into “Creep” mode or he just didn’t want anything accidentally happening and his beautiful Vin #1 Model X driving off the stage.
- Regenerative braking: of course he’d have it on full blast!
- Seems that he’d have “Sport” mode on for the steering…
- … but let’s be honest, we have no idea at this point if these controls have been tampered with by curious guests or the driver tasked with bringing Elon’s Model X on stage.
To close out, it’s pretty cool that you can manually set speed limit warnings that are offset a bit from the actual speed limit, and that you have various levels to choose from with the “Collision Avoidance Assist.”
More thoughts?
Also see: Tesla’s Model X Page Updated With New Pics & Info
It looks like they made the buttons corresponding to the active setting bright blue while the other setting options are almost black and colored as if the buttons are depressed. I find this a confusing mixed message because depressed buttons are usually the activated ones, not the deactivated ones. The text on the deactivated buttons is also greyed out which makes them harder to read and implies the buttons are deactivated and un-pressable. Unless the buttons actually ARE unpressable (possible if it was set in some locked demo mode so people couldn’t change settings) I think the UI is giving some non-standard mixed messages.
That’s night mode, as per Model S. It’s rendered that way to minimise light pollution in the cabin while you’re driving.
It automatically switches to a light background in the day, or you can override it.
I’m not talking about it being black, I’m talking about the way buttons are rendered depressed and with grey (implying inactive) text. But looking at it again I think the buttons that appear disabled actually ARE disabled. In the first screenshot, “Rear Fog” and “Fog” are both rendered as un-pressed with white text. The active one is blue, the inactive is black. That makes sense. But “Off”, “Parking”, and “On” are rendered as pressed with grey text, and I think that means they’re disabled and can’t be chosen for whatever reason (perhaps locked for demo purposes).
With the exception of door close and trailer mode, it’s what’s been in the Model S for a while. That’s no bad thing, though it’s not really a surprise either.