Tesla Model X

Brillant car. But too small.

The most exciting car that might meet our needs is the Tesla Model X. Seating for 7, amazing acceleration, the smoothness of battery power. And those falcon-wing doors! Finally, someone makes a car that escapes the sliding-door stigma of a minivan, but is also safer and easier for kids to get in and out of the back seat. It's remarkable how much hold back doors have on our collective psyche as a car-buying public.

I also love the environmental benefits of electric cars - even though I know our family's emissions are only a drop in the bucket compared to the overall world economy, I think we should do what we can to reduce them. And the emissions from electric vehicles take place generally far away from cities, which makes life in crowded places better - should help reduce deaths from polluted air. Living in California, with solar panels on our roof, the EV has compelling environmental benefits.

Two big strikes against the Model X, though: price and practicality. It's still out of reach financially for almost all families, especially if you want a bigger battery. I wanted a Model X so badly that I was trying to figure out how to justify the expense, because it's an exciting car and has a great image. But it also loses on practicality, especially for our big-for-the-SF-bay-area family. We went to the Tesla store and sat inside it, and tried to convince ourselves that we could cram all six of us and our stuff into the car for a long road trip, but realistically it would be painful. And even the $150k version has range that's short enough that it would make our family camping trips difficult - we'd always be searching for the nearest supercharger, and hoping for an open charging spot. Even worse, the falcon-wing doors make it impossible to mount a cargo box to the roof, which we would need to do for long trips. And it fails the cello + family test. Finally, our garage has a very low ceiling, with a beam running in an inconvenient place. Although I think those falcon doors would technically still open, it might be difficult to get in and out of the Model X in our house. All these things are difficult to change. So we decided the Model X wasn't the right car either.