When Dallas-area Realtor Katherine Schwartz went shopping for a new sport utility vehicle (SUV), she test-drove several models, including a Chevy Tahoe, a Land Rover LR3 and a Mercedes GL550.
In the end, Schwartz, 40, decided to plunk down a US$5,000 deposit for a vehicle no consumer has been able to sit in, much less take for a spin: Tesla Motors Inc’s all-electric Model X, which starts deliveries later this month.
“You name it, I test-drove it, but when I saw the video of Elon Musk revealing the Model X online I was like: ‘OK, this is it,’” said Schwartz, who is always hauling something: clients, real-estate signs, two kids, their friends, the dog.
Photo: Bloomberg
Plus, her husband already drives a Tesla Model S sedan.
“I’m very impressed with the safety record of the Model S, and I figure that the X will be comparably rated,” she said.
Tesla designed its first SUV in part to appeal to female drivers and is betting a lot of women will feel the same way as Schwartz. If the company is to hit an ambitious annual sales target of 500,000 vehicles by 2020, it needs to attract a whole new contingent of drivers — and women buy more than half the crossover SUVs in the US.
Tesla’s initial customers — many of them tech-savvy early adopters — were overwhelmingly male. In 2012, the year the Model S hit the market, women accounted for just 13.3 percent of the electric sedan’s US registrations, according to data from IHS Automotive.
However, the gender ratio is shifting as women become more comfortable with electric vehicle technology, the company’s safety record and the Tesla brand.
In 2013, women accounted for 17.8 percent of Model S registrations; last year, it was 21.5 percent, according to IHS.
With the Model X, the demographics of Tesla’s customers have the potential to flip. Although women buy just 40 percent of cars in the US, they purchase 53 percent of small SUVs and 48 percent of small premium SUVs, according to an analysis by J.D. Power & Associates.
Schwartz’s order of priorities will be familiar to many female car buyers: a third-row seat, plenty of cargo space, safety, reliability, fuel economy and performance.
Early in the design process, Tesla invited a dozen women to its Palo Alto, California, headquarters for a three-hour focus group led by Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen. The participants, most of whom drove minivans and SUVs, were asked what they like and do not like about their vehicles.
Among the big issues: safety, a third row and getting kids in and out of car seats.
Musk unveiled the Model X in February 2012 at a splashy Los Angeles event featuring California Governor Jerry Brown.
Three-and-a-half years later, the first Model Xs — a limited-edition Founders Series that typically goes to board members and close friends of the company — are to be handed over on Sept. 29 at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California.
The all-wheel-drive Model X seats seven passengers, has “falcon wing” doors that open vertically and a 90 kilowatt-hour battery that is expected to have a range of about 386km per charge.
Musk recently said on Twitter that with the same options, the Model X is to cost US$5,000 more than the Model S due to its greater size and complexity.
The Model S starts at US$75,000; Tesla has not released the full specifications for the Model X.
US drivers are to buy more than 17 million new vehicles this year, and their love affair with trucks and SUVs is accelerating. Last year, more than 889,000 light trucks were sold in the US, compared with 688,000 cars.
Smaller SUVs, including the BMW X5, the Audi Q5 and the Porsche Cayenne, are among the models popular among female drivers.
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