The 2022 Tesla Model X Plaid Is an Insanely Fast, High-Tech Family SUV

This is a brand new Tesla Model X Plaid and it's insane. This is a family crossover with six seats and rear entertainment screens and USB ports for charging your devices. But it's also the quickest SUV ever. It has over a thousand horsepower. It does 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds. And today I'm going to review it. So let's talk Model X Plaid. Plaid seems to be Tesla's new high-performance model line. And I reviewed the Model S Plaid last year and it was insane. But this might just be crazier. This isn't as fast as the Model S Plaid, but it's close and it's a family crossover. It also starts around and today I'm going to show you everything. First, I'll take you on a thorough tour of the X Plaid and show you all of its quirks and features. Then I'll get it out on the road and drive it. And then I'll give it a Doug's score. Before I get started, I want to talk about Credit Sesame, which is the sponsor of today's video. 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Sign up for free and you can be well on the way to building your credit with a free debit card from Credit Sesame. All right, I'm going to start the quirks and features, the Model X Plaid, with getting inside. And to do that, I have a few interesting tricks like this key, which you can see is shaped sort of like the Model X Plaid. It doesn't have traditional buttons. Instead, you just tap on various parts of the key to get different items to open. And that is kind of cool. You also have this credit card key, which you can keep in your wallet. That's a brilliant idea in case you lose your keys, whatever. You've got a backup in your wallet or purse. And you can see this diagram on the back shows you just walk up to the car, stick the key next to the door, and then the door will unlock and you can climb inside even if you've forgotten your key. Both very cool key options for this car, but I don't need either of them. That's because if you walk up to this car with the key in your pocket, you just tap the door handle, it recognizes you, and then the door opens automatically. It doesn't just unlock automatically, it opens. And then you can kind of open it up the rest of the way and climb inside. And once you've done that, check this out. You get in, you sit down, you put your foot on the brake, and the door automatically closes. It does that completely for you once you put your foot on the brake. So you don't have to do any door opening or closing in the Model X. It will do all of that stuff for you, at least from the driver's side. And that is really cool. But of course, the operation of the front doors in the Model X is nowhere near as head-turning and eye-catching as the back doors. For these, once again, you walk up to the car, key in your pocket, and you tap on the door handle, really just a door tapper, and then the door opens. But this time it opens upwards. As you can see, it opens up and out like gull-wing doors. Of course, Tesla calls these falcon-wing doors, and you have one on each side in the back. You just tap, the door automatically opens itself up, and then you can climb inside. Forget traditional opening doors or minivan sliding doors. This is what Tesla gives you to stand out from the crowd, and it certainly does that. But anyway, the doors are just the beginning of the insanity in this car. So let's climb inside and go through all of the craziness in this interior, starting with the yoke. The steering wheel in this car isn't actually a steering wheel. It looks like a video game controller joystick situation or maybe an airplane controller, and it's totally insane. And it's what everybody wants to talk about for this car, so let's talk about it. In addition to being strangely shaped, as you can see, it also doesn't have any stalks. So no stalks sticking off for the turn signals or for the windshield wipers over on the other side of the column. Instead, most of that stuff is integrated into buttons mounted on the yoke itself. For instance, over on the left, these arrows are your turn signals. You push them, and they turn on the signals just like a signal stalk in a normal car. Also over on the left, you have your high beams. You press that to flash your high beams instead of pulling the end of the stalk since you don't have one. Now, over on the right side of the yoke, there are a few more interesting controls. You have your windshield wipers over here, for example, and you can also see your cruise control, which in this car controls Tesla's autopilot system. But maybe the most surprising control over on the right side is the horn, which you can see is right here, not the center of the yoke steering wheel. Instead, you tap this little button, and that's the horn when you're driving around with the yoke. Now, a lot of people are complaining about how difficult the yoke must be to use, but I personally don't really find it that hard. Ultimately, it is a wheel shape. It's connected on all sides, and you can generally maneuver it relatively similarly to a steering wheel. Here is like moving it all the way from side to side. It's not really that bad, especially once you start getting used to it. And I think a lot of the crazy, angry criticism about the yoke is kind of overblown. It's kind of cool and futuristic, to be honest. Now, eliminating the stalks for the turn signals, the wipers, and other controls over here is done in the pursuit of simplicity. And indeed, a lot of stuff in this interior is done for the most minimalist experience possible. You look around this interior, and it does look simple and minimalist and basic, and that is exactly what they're going for in here. And they've made a lot of decisions to that effect in this interior. For example, the gear selector. There is none. You get in this car, there's no button or stick. You pull it in to go into drive or reverse. Instead, the car predicts what gear you want to be in when you climb inside. Right now, I'm facing a tree and a curb, and so the car predicts correctly that I'll want to go in reverse when I start up. And then theoretically, it would predict when I'm done and want to move back into drive. But of course, you can override this predictive shifting using the screen. This little graphic on the left side of the screen is your gear selector. If you want to go forward, you move the little car forward, and then you're in drive. If you want to go into reverse, you move the little car backwards, and then you're in reverse. And park is a little screen button on the top, and that is your Model X Plaid gear selector. But you're probably thinking, what if the screen fails? Is the car no longer drivable? Not quite. There is a backup gear selector situation here in the center. Around the hazard light, you might be able to faintly make out P, R, and D. And if the screen fails, that can be used as a true gear selector backup. But most of the time, you'll be using either the predictive gears or that screen control. But anyway, next up, another decision in this interior made in the pursuit of simplicity is on the door panel. Well, you'll see there's no door handle. You don't have a traditional door handle. Instead, you have this button that's integrated into the door pull. You press that, and then the door electronically pops open, and you can climb out. There is a backup mechanical handle, but it too is hidden here directly in front of the window controls. And you wouldn't really know what that does unless you have to use it. Again, all about simplicity and minimalism in here. And another good example of that is the climate vents, because you'll look on the dashboard and you don't see them. There aren't any climate vents anywhere where you'd expect them to be. They are here, but they are hidden. You can see the driver's side one is directly above the gauge cluster screen here. That little vent is enough to cool you down or heat you up, and it's hidden there. And the passenger side of the dashboard has the same thing, a hidden vent over on the passenger side. You can't see it. You don't know it's there, but it does blow air out like a regular climate control system, just hidden for simplicity and minimalism. And it's the same deal with the charging pads in the center. This Alcantara looking panel is actually your wireless cell phone charging pad. You stick your phone on there, and it starts charging. No weird warning labels or button to turn it on like some other brands have. It just looks like trim, but it actually has a function. And in fact, the center of this interior in general is quite minimalist. You have this carbon fiber panel here, but that's a lid which you can open up in two ways. Halfway open gives you access to your cup holders, or you can open it the rest of the way, and then you have more access to your center storage area. And the cup holders and center storage area also open up to give you an even larger center storage area, which is cool. This is all fantastically integrated, and again, very minimal, very simple, but very functional. Same deal with the larger center storage area. This white panel armrest here is actually a lid that opens up to another center storage area. And the cool thing is this panel doesn't have like a latch or a button you have to press to open it. Instead, it's a magnet. You just pull hard enough, and it opens, and then you push it back down, and it remagnetizes. Pretty cool. But probably the very best example in this interior of simplicity and minimalism is the windshield, which is really just a giant glass panel starting where a normal windshield starts and then going all the way over the heads of the front seat occupants. And it is cool, and it gives this massive open air feeling in this car that you just don't get with basically any other vehicle. Open and airy, and frankly, really simple. Not a lot of busyness or controls on the ceiling. You just have glass, and you see the world. But you're probably thinking, what about the sun visors? They are located to the left of the front seat occupants. On the A pillar, you can see them here folded to the side. If you want to put the sun visors in place, you just move them, and then they latch onto this panel that also contains your central rearview mirror. And that's how your sun visors go into place. Of course, if you don't want them anymore, just unlatch them from that panel, put them away, and then you have your full glass windshield situation again. This is a fantastic solution for the sun visors if you want this full glass panel, and it's way better than what I showed you in the Lucid Air, which looks like suction cups for the sun visors stuck on the windshield. Not particularly attractive. This is far cooler and far more elegant and more useful if you really love this glass panel. But not everything in this car is quite so simple. When you remove all of the controls and functions and features from basically everywhere, you got to find someplace to put them. And in this car, that's this screen. This giant center screen has everything. Controls, features, functions, everything you can think of is all in this nerve center screen here in the center of the dashboard, and it really does everything. So let's go through some of its interesting quirks and features. Now, this screen and this configuration is basically the home screen. You can see media on one side, the map on the other, but you can pull up all sorts of different things if you want to. Tap the media icon at the bottom, and now your music is a larger screen, so you can adjust what you're listening to. Tap the phone icon at the bottom, and again, now phone comes up, and it's larger, and you have your phone controls here. Or tap the camera icon at the bottom, and now your cameras have all come up, and now you can check that stuff out. And any of this stuff is easy to put away to go back to the home screen. You just swipe down, and then it's gone. You can see, do that with any one of these screens. Just swipe, and it's gone. And indeed, that's kind of a hallmark of the Tesla center screen. It's really easy to control. Tremendously responsive, just like your smartphone. Frankly, maybe even faster. It's really great, and it's pretty intuitive. If you're used to modern technology, phones, that sort of thing, you'll get used to this center screen and the way that it operates. It really does work well, and it really is fast to respond, easy to figure out, a lot of great stuff about this screen. But there's also some crazy stuff about this screen, some absolutely bizarre quirks and features, starting with the toy box. You go down here, and there's various different things you can do in this screen to keep you entertained, like this sketch pad where you can just draw. On your car's infotainment screen, you can draw whatever you wish, and I guess that would be fun or interesting. You also have in here something called tracks, which allows you to audio record inside the car, and not necessarily just speaking. It includes audio sound effects. You could record music in here if you wanted to, sitting inside your car, treating it as a Tesla recording studio. That feature is built into the infotainment screen. You also have a Mars mode, and if you tap on that, then the navigation screen turns to Mars instead of the actual place where you are, and your vehicle turns into the Mars rover, driving across Mars while you drive down the street. But probably the craziest thing in this toy box is the boom box function, which allows you to replace your vehicle's horn sound. Take a listen to this. I press the horn, and this is what it sounds like. But now I choose, for example, this horn sound instead, and now I press the horn button, and this is what it sounds like. So you can literally replace the sound of your horn with a different sound in this car, and it gets even crazier because there's a megaphone. Electric cars have little speakers on the outside that make a little noise while they're driving, so people don't get run over by a silent electric car. But you can replace that sound with the megaphone, tap here, and then you can speak, and your voice is amplified through those speakers that make the electric car sound, and you can talk to people. Take a listen. Hello, everyone. Do you want to check out my quirks and features? But that's not even the craziest part of this screen. Probably the craziest part is the built-in gaming system in this screen. You go to that, and you can select from many different games that are built into your vehicle infotainment system. The default one, the first option that shows up, looks like a SimCity sort of game built into your Tesla screen, and there is a wide variety of others, ranging from simple games like chess, as you can see, your backgammon, to actual real video games like Sonic the Hedgehog, which is built into your Tesla screen, although that particular game requires a controller that is sold extra with these cars as an accessory, so you can play video games from your front seats using the controller. My very favorite of these games, though, is the driving game, which is like a Tesla stupid car racing game. You tap here, and then you can use the actual vehicle controls to drive in the racing game. Take a look. But anyway, beyond the craziness of this screen, there's also some actual functional controls in here. You tap the car icon at the bottom of the screen, and it brings up, like, all of your car controls, and there's a lot of stuff that you can control the vehicle with this screen, as you can see. This main screen allows you to basically open stuff, like your charge port or your front trunk, or your doors. You can open up the doors here, since they're power open, as I showed you before. You can even open up the rear doors, the falcon wing doors here. You tap this, and you can see the falcon wing door opens up automatically from a tap in your center screen, which is a pretty cool feature. You can also use this screen to adjust your rear view mirrors and the position of your steering wheel, and it's quite cool how that works. You tap on mirrors, and suddenly these little wheels on the steering wheel will adjust your mirrors, and you can move them left, right, up, down using these little steering wheel wheels. But if you tap on steering wheel in the center screen, suddenly these steering wheel wheels now adjust the position of your steering wheel. They do multiple things depending on exactly what screen you're on, and you can see these wheels are now moving the steering wheel up, down, in, out, which is very cool that they have multiple purposes. Now, the rest of the vehicle controls in the screen are substantial. There's a huge number of them, and I'm not going to go through all of them, but I'm going to point out a few quirky highlights, starting here with drag strip mode. If you want to have a true launch in this car to go as fast as possible, you turn this on, and then you have to go through various other checks to get it into its optimal acceleration mode, but that's how you get the launch control started. Another feature I love in this area is sentry mode, which is a feature that basically acts as a security system for your car. There's all sorts of cameras for parking and backing up and blind spots, and when the car is off, parked, and locked, those cameras will turn on if they sent someone nearby, pushing on the car, hitting the car, touching the car, brushing up against it. It'll all be recorded using sentry mode, which is a fantastically cool idea. Indeed, this screen is full of fantastically cool ideas, though I must say there are a few drawbacks in here. For one, if you want to open up the glove box, a simple latch is very simple, but in this car, you got to go into the screen. You tap here, and that's how you open the glove box, which is disappointing. Same thing with the window locks. If you don't lock out your rear passengers from using the windows, most cars, a simple button press on the driver's window switches. In this car, you got to go into the screen, into the lock setting, and then you can lock out the windows. It just adds some complication, but probably the best example of added complication here comes with the climate controls. You can see there are no climate controls in this interior. Of course, minimalism, simplicity, and that means it's all in the screen. Now, you can adjust the climate temperature very easily at the bottom of the screen, as you can see here, and when you do that, it brings up a few other controls as well, like your heated seats or your front and rear window defogger and defroster, which is nice, but that still requires multiple taps. If you want to put on the heated seats, you got to tap the climate area and then tap the heated seat, and it's just more difficult than pressing a simple button, and it still doesn't have all of your climate control functions. If you want to do that, you got to tap the temperature and open up a larger climate screen, and only then can you start to do things like change the fan speed or change where the air comes out. Never a big fan of climate controls fully integrated into screens because it just complicates what should be a simple process. With that said, a couple of interesting quirks in the climate control screen. For one, you have this button, which is your heated yoke. It looks like a yoke with heating instead of a traditional steering wheel, which is kind of funny to see. You also, in here, have dog mode, which is a fantastic feature idea. You turn on dog mode, and then the next time you park the car and lock it and walk away, the car will assume there's a dog inside, or a pet, since you turned on dog mode, and it will keep the car cool so that the dog stays nice and cool and comfortable, even if you've gone to do a little bit of shopping, so you can keep your dog in the car while it's parked. Obviously, you can't do this with a gasoline car because it'll just sit there idling and spewing emissions, but in this, it's electric, so the climate control can still run, even when the car is parked and locked. And there will even be a warning on the screen showing any passersby that the car is a comfortable temperature inside, so if people walk by on a hot day and see a dog inside a car, they don't freak out and try to break the window because the screen says, hey, this dog is comfortable, and here's the temperature in here. It's pretty cool. And one other cool feature, the center screen, is the blind spot camera system. You're driving along, and you put on the turn signal, and a blind spot camera pops up automatically on this center screen in the direction that you've signaled, and it works both ways, which is very cool. I've seen this feature in some new Hyundai and Kia models. It's tremendously helpful, and it's nice to see other automakers adopting it, too, including Tesla. This great blind spot camera system with your turn signal. But anyway, since I'm talking screens in here, worth pointing out the other screen in this interior, and that would be the gauge cluster screen. Directly above the yoke, you have a gauge cluster here, which is really nice to have. I mentioned that because some other Tesla models don't. The Model 3 and the Model Y still don't have a gauge screen, so everything is on your center screen. But it's nice to have some information directly in your line of sight while you're driving down the road, and you can see it includes basics like the speed you're going or the current time, the gear you're in, whether your turn signals are on, your headlights, your range left to empty, all that sort of stuff is nice to have in a gauge cluster directly below where you're looking out like most normal cars have. And I like that the Model S and X still have a traditional gauge screen. By the way, one other interesting thing about this gauge screen, it knows exactly how open your doors are. So in most cars, you open your door and a warning comes on and says the door is open. And this car actually shows precisely how open your door is, perfectly corresponding to how much you've opened it, which is unnecessary and stupid, but kind of cool attention to detail at the same time. Mostly, though, the screen just shows like the goings on around you while you're driving along. See, it shows like what lane you're in, where other cars are, stoplights, that sort of thing, basically showing what autopilot is picking up while you're driving along projected onto this screen. But anyway, next up, let's move on to the backseat in the Model X, where there is a lot to discuss, starting with seating capacity. The X Plaid is only offered with six seats, which is two up front, two in the middle, and two in the back, and that's the only way you can get a Plaid. Now, other Model Xs are available with either five seats, so two up front, three back here, and no third row, or seven seats, which is two, three, two, but the Plaid is only offered like this. And the second row is rather interesting. The seats are mounted on like pedestals, and they almost seem like they're floating. When you open up the door and look at them, like they're sort of suspended over the floor in the back of this car, which is kind of cool. They are also controllable, power operated with this little control here on the side of the seat, just like you'd see in front. You can move the seat up, down, back, forward, that sort of thing in the second row of your Plaid. But anyway, before we go any further in back, let's talk doors for a second, and specifically closing the door. You do that once you get inside with this button here, the one showing the image of the car with the doors closed. Obviously, tap that, and then the door closes. And this happens automatically. You don't do anything but press the button, and it just closes, and then you're good to go. Now, obviously, if you want to get out of the car and open the door, you press the other button here, the one with the doors open, and that is how you climb out of the Model X and open up the Falcon wing door. And by the way, if you're curious, if you want to close the door from the outside, once you've already opened it, there's this red button here on the side. You push that, and then the door will automatically close itself, and you can walk away with your rear Falcon wing doors closed. But anyway, moving back inside, one other door-related item worth noting. On the ceiling of the doors, the tops, there is a window, which you can see here. So you have a side window on the doors and also an upper window, which is above your head. This is a cool feature, but it's nowhere near as cool as a true panoramic roof, like a glass sunroof like most cars have. You can't get that here because of this big panel in the middle that has to be a support system for the Falcon wing doors. So instead, you have this little glass panel on the top of each door. Anyway, moving on to other items in the back of this car, one important one is this screen, which you can see here, sort of in between the backs of the front seats. There are a few obvious functions this screen has, like your climate controls. You can use it to adjust temperature, airflow, that sort of thing. And you can also use it to turn on the heated seats, which is a nice feature to have. But probably my favorite feature in this screen is here, the apps for your rear seat entertainment. Instead of just plugging in some device, you got Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and of course YouTube, which is the most important one because... Anyway, next up below that center screen back here, you have two USB-C ports, as you can see, and you have cup holders. You tap this panel and then the cup holders pop out, and then obviously you can use them to store your drinks. Pretty simple. But anyway, next we move on to the third row in the Model X Plaid, and there are two ways you can access the third row. One is just getting inside and stepping between the two middle row seats. There's a lot of space there and it's easy to get into the third row from there. But you can also move the seats forward. There's a little button on the side. You press it and then the seat will automatically slide forward and kind of tilt down as far as it possibly can, giving you some access to the third row. And then you climb back here, and you're in. And that's the third row in the Model X. Now, it's worth pointing out that this third row is actually deceptively large. You wouldn't think it looking at this vehicle from the outside. It's not that big or that long or that tall, but you do have okay space back here. Of course, it's not huge, but adults couldn't sit back here on shorter trips and be only sort of uncomfortable. It's a bigger third row than you might think. And even headroom isn't so bad, which is a surprise because of the teardrop shape of the Model X, but your head kind of fits into this window alcove in back. And even I, at over six feet tall, have no problem sticking my head here, and it doesn't even hit the ceiling. Kind of a surprise in the third row. But anyway, aside from that, not too many other interesting quirks or features in back. You do have cup holders in the third row between the seats, and you also have two USB-C ports. You can see them mounted here, but that's just about it in terms of interesting third row items. But even though the third row itself is surprisingly large and adds to the practicality of the X-Plaid, it subtracts from the practicality in terms of cargo space. You pop open the tailgate and you can see the third row takes up quite a bit of space back here and really robs an enormous amount of usable cargo space in the back of the Model X. You do have some cargo room behind the third row, but it really isn't all that much. Now, fortunately, the third row seats can be very easily put away. You just press and hold this little button on the side of the seats and then push it forward and the seat goes down. Not as easy as a power folding seat with a button like in most other three row vehicles at this price point, but that's how you do it and put the seats down. The real drawback though of moving these seats is getting them back up, which is actually quite challenging. In order to do that, you have to reach all the way inside to press that button again and then hold it down while simultaneously reaching inside and pulling the seat back up. It's probably the worst operating third row seat folding and unfolding system in the entire car industry, but that's what they've done in the Model X. Tesla's always a little bit different. Now, if you keep the third row in place, because it's kind of annoying to put down the seats and very annoying to pull them back up, it is worth pointing out there is some extra cargo storage back here and it's under the cargo floor. If you lift up this panel, you can see there's actually a lot of extra space in back where you can put a lot more stuff. So even with the third row in place doesn't look like there's much storage, but if you open up this floor panel, there is indeed more than you might think. And there's even more than that because this vehicle has a front trunk. Like I mentioned before, you can open it by tapping this frunk icon on the infotainment screen and then it pops open. You go around, open it up the rest of the way and you can see the front trunk. Not especially interesting, nothing quirky or weird there, but it does have it for even more storage space in case the rear isn't quite enough. And next up, since I'm on the outside of the Model X, I want to talk about the way the Model X looks. And I have to say this is probably the least attractive Tesla model. It looks a lot like all of the other Teslas, but just scaled up a bit. And as a result, it seems a little disproportionate, not ugly, but kind of goofy and just a little bit on the weird side. But this design does mean that the Model X has the lowest coefficient of drag of any SUV being made, which makes it very slippery and of course contributes to its excellent range. Now, one thing I will say about the style of the Model X plaid, I love how subtle it is. This is the fastest SUV on the market, the fastest in the world, but you wouldn't really know that from the outside. There is one subtle plaid badge in back and that's really the only giveaway. Everything else is really, really easy to miss. Probably the biggest other giveaway is these big wheels, but that's basically it. This is a total sleeper and there's no way to know that this is the fastest SUV until you're getting beaten by it. Now, one interesting quirk on the outside is the charge port door location. You can see the tail light here on the driver's side, pretty standard, nothing interesting, except this reflector pops open to reveal the charge port door, which is a very cool way to hide it on the outside. Over on the passenger side, it's just a reflector in the tail light, but on the driver's side, it's actually the charge door. And up front, the front fender has a fender vent, which is a common stylistic touch in vehicles today, but here it's actually the camera. That blind spot camera I showed you before is hidden in this fender vent looking thing. So it's both stylish and functional, which is kind of cool. And finally, last thing I want to cover with the Model X plaid is a general overview of the Model X model range, which has been simplified quite a bit from when this vehicle first came out. Now, there are only two trim levels. There's a base model, which used to be called the long range that has 670 horsepower, does 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds and starts around $105,000. Yes, even the base Model X has 670 horses. Then you have this one, the plaid, which has 1,020 horsepower, does 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, and it starts around $127,000. And right now, those are your Model X choices. As for range, the base model gets about 350 miles of range, and the plaid is about 335, although those range numbers can change depending on which wheel size you get. This plaid has the optional 22-inch wheels, and they drop the range to about 310 miles, but they look better. So it's kind of a trade-off that you have to weigh if you're buying one of these. And so those are the quirks and features of the new Tesla Model X Plaid. Now, it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives. All right, driving the Model X Plaid. Now, I wasn't planning on reviewing the X Plaid because I already reviewed the S Plaid, but there's been a ton of demand. I've been getting an enormous amount of requests, and so here we are filming the X Plaid. So first thing about driving this vehicle, obviously, the yoke steering wheel, it gets a lot of criticism. I really don't think it's so bad, and I really think it's something that you get used to. And frankly, I think it's kind of cool. You know, the people who hate the yoke steering wheel, I think, are not the people that it's meant for. It's meant for people who want, like, something weird, some cool gimmick, an interesting thing. And I think that that's this, and I get why it would be cool. I don't think I would want one on my own car, but I'm not the, oh my god, the yoke is the worst thing in the world. There are those people, and I don't really feel that way. And I have to tell you, sitting in this interior with the yoke and the windshield going over your head, you feel like you're in a futuristic vehicle. You feel like you're having a totally different experience from what other people on the road are seeing. And I think that that's a big selling point for people driving this car, that it really doesn't feel like a normal car. Here's something that is interesting, something that speaks to them in, like, an unusual and thrilling way. And then, of course, there's the acceleration. Let's do it. Whoa! Let's do it again. Oh my god. Oh, holy crap. Wow. You know, the S-Plaid, you know, the S-Plaid is fast. It's really, really, really fast. And I guess this isn't as fast, so they say. Sitting here flooring it, it feels about as fast to me. But the really insane thing to me about this car is just how big it is. This is a family SUV, three-row seating, and I'm doing zero to 60 in two-point something. It feels laughably, insanely fast, and I truly cannot believe that. Now, where this vehicle starts to come apart a bit is in its handling. I wouldn't say come apart, but if you're comparing it to other performance SUVs, this is the fastest. This is the king. This is the quickest. Zero to 60, it will beat out anything else, any other crossover SUV, and pretty much any other car you encounter. But if you're going around corners, this car doesn't quite have some of the benefits that its rivals do. The MW X5 M feels just so planted and quick and stable and amazing around corners. Fantastic steering feel. This car just doesn't have it. The steering feel on the Plaid is pretty good, but that's because Tesla really makes sure that its cars have quick steering as almost a substitute for their not-so-great handling. The vehicle is heavy. It's large, physically large, wide, tall, long. And so it just doesn't quite handle like its competition in terms of other performance SUVs. But it is damn fast. And I think for most people, especially most urban city dweller people, the kind of people who buy these cars, that's what they're looking for. Flooring it, showing their friends, holy crap, this is amazing. Not necessarily a canyon carver. Ultimately, this is a family crossover. And so I bet that's not as important to, the handling aspect is not as important to most of the people who buy this vehicle. Now, in terms of actual, just normal everyday driving, that's probably the thing you're most interested in. Even if you think you want the power, you're going to mostly just be driving it around. And I got to say, there's a lot to love about the Model X. This is a lot of great things at once. It's an incredible performance car. It's a family car. And it's an ultra high tech electric car. Now, I understand there are some drawbacks to this vehicle. Some of the features are a little bit disappointing. I don't feel that way about the yoke as much as other people do. But the third row seat folding down is disappointing. Tesla goes their own way in terms of some of that stuff. But you do have autopilot, which is fantastic. It really works well. And I really think there's a lot to like here, even if you're not just a diehard Tesla person. This is a cool car that has some really redeeming qualities and some monstrous acceleration and good technology. And so that's the Tesla Model X Plaid. This is one of the craziest vehicles I've ever driven. Family SUV sizing with supercar acceleration. And it's truly insane to get behind the wheel, or rather the yoke, of this wild vehicle. But anyway, now it's time to give the X Plaid a Doug's score. And the Doug's score is here. 71 out of 100, which places it here against some other amazing do-everything types of cars. Truthfully, the X Plaid is an amazing all-round car. But it does have some faults. Notably, it's not especially gorgeous. Handling is only average. And it doesn't feel special enough. They've been out long enough that they don't exactly turn heads anymore. It's also missing a few features others have, like a camera rearview mirror and easy folding third row seats. But the benefits are huge. Insane acceleration, great technology, and a really practical package. I'd like this car more if it wasn't for those stupid look-at-me doors. But there's a lot to love here. And the X Plaid is a great combination of daily usability and thrilling fun. Big money, but it makes sense for what you get.