1st Tesla Model X In China Arrives (Video)
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Tesla recently held an event in Beijing to mark the official delivery of the first Model X to the Asia-Pacific region. The regional launch event at the historic Diaoyutai State Guesthouse saw the attendance of around 400 people.
The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse is a hotel and garden retreat in the western suburbs of the Chinese capital that’s often used as a hosting venue for foreign government officials, and other “important” people.
Despite our earlier reports on the possible delay of Model X deliveries to the region, it appears that things are roughly on track. Tesla’s Vice President of Asia Pacific, Robin Ren, was quoted by the China Daily as saying that the company is actually more than 6 months ahead of schedule, and that first deliveries are expected by the end of the month.
“Stimulated by the impressive number of orders of Model 3, we are now making a new capacity plan,” Ren stated.
“Tesla first announced back in February of this year that it would begin taking orders for the flashy Model X, just ahead of the country’s national Chinese new year holiday. Deliveries were not anticipated until the first quarter of 2017 though early sightings of the Model X seen at the Beijing air cargo terminal led some to believe that more of the electric crossover might be headed into the country, albeit the one spotted was presumably Tesla’s display car for the Beijing Auto China show,” Teslarati states.
“China has become Tesla’s second largest market after the US, and has seen more than a 300% growth rate over the past year.”
It’s still not exactly clear what the delivery schedule for the region will be like. Will those who placed an order months ago get theirs relatively soon? Is the region being prioritized?
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The HEPA filter or ‘bioweapon defense mode’ was made specifically for the Chinese market.
Air filtration is something that the wealthy elite in China absolutely want everywhere they go. Which is not very surprising. Even if you’re ultra rich in China, you still have to live in their smog plagued cities.
Here in Melbourne Australia, we have approx 4.5m people, and an ever expanding number of them are Chinese, looking to get away from the air pollution at home… What I don’t understand is WHY is the pollution so bad? We have clear skies here virtually all the time, compared to China’s cities with thick smog virtually continuously. It is a mystery to me…
Multiple reasons. Vehicles. Coal fueled building heat boilers and industrial boilers. Electricity plants. Even some coal used for cooking in homes.
Coal-fueled electricity plants seem to contribute less than what most people would guess. Vehicles play a large role. Thus the government’s support for EVs.
OK, I can see a correlation between coal and the pollution, but we have dirty (really dirty) brown coal making most of our power, but it is located where the coal is – far from Melbourne, and does contribute to city pollution. I’d assume the Chinese are not stupid, and would do the same – locating power stations far from major cities. Burning coal in homes is one thing I had not considered, so that may be a primary cause. The cars on the road… We have horrendous traffic problems on our Melbourne roads (supposedly worse than LA), but I sit here looking out my window with yet another pure clear sky day arriving. It is weird, and illogical. Maybe Chinese cities don’t have wind to blow the pollution away ?