Electricity in the Air: Tesla May Unveil SUV Later This Year
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has said his company will unveil an all-electric SUV later this year.
According to earth2tech, Musk spoke about the proposed vehicle, dubbed the Tesla X SUV, on Wednesday at the Cleantech Investor Summit in Palm Springs, Calif.
A production version of the vehicle would not likely hit the streets until 2014 or so, based in part on Tesla getting its sports sedan Model S out the door late next year or the year after.
The Tesla X SUV might well draw upon the Toyota RAV4 EV, the first fruit of a recent Toyota-Tesla partnership , which was shown off at the Los Angeles Auto Show last fall and might be available in 2012.
Musk also spoke about a "mainstream" electric vehicle costing $30,000 becoming a reality by about 2015. That cost figure is not much below the base price of the all-electric Nissan Leaf at $33,720, or out of sight for the $41,000 plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, for that matter.
Even so, these new models — the first two of an (intended) wave of mass-market electric vehicles — have a lot riding on their shoulders, so to speak, in proving to consumers that plug-in cars can compete with conventional gas guzzlers and hybrids.
