Photo: StefanKV on TFF forum
There's nothing bad in reverse-engineering stuff. The Japanese did it after the war with US electronics, and look where that got them: after a few years, every American owned a Sony, a Panasonic or a Toshiba, and those who didn't, worked harder to afford one.
So the fact that Audi has bought a Tesla Model X and is studying it inside-out makes perfect sense, especially since the Ingolstadt brand is looking to release its first true rival in the form of the Audi e-tron quattro, also known as the Q6. The new model from Audi will be built in Belgium and should become available by 2018.
Buying cars from the competition is also something every manufacturer does, and it's the only way to effectively benchmark your own products against those it will face once out on the market. In the case of full-electric SUVs, Audi had it pretty easy as the Model X was the only purchase necessary. However, getting its hands on one might not have been as easy as forking out the $100,000+ needed to secure one.
As you're probably already aware, it's pretty hard to find a Tesla Model X. The Palo Alto company had certain issues with some of its parts suppliers, so the production schedule has been thrown off its initially planned route. Since then, it's been an upstream battle to make up the lost time and try to meet all the demands. But for all its efforts, European deliveries haven't even started yet.
So Audi definitely had to buy a US version and have it shipped over. It's unclear whether it was acquired as a new vehicle through a third party or it's pre-owned, but it doesn't even matter that much. What matters, though, is that since it's a US import, it uses a different Supercharger plug than the European models, something this alleged Audi engineer found out the hard way.
StefanKV, a member of the TFF forum and Tesla Model S owner, spotted the scene at the Tesla Supercharger in Schweitenkirchen. Apparently, as Electrek reports, the driver of the Model X attempted to charge the car but had to call it quits after realizing the charger didn't match the plug on the car.
While it's pretty funny to laugh at such a colossal blooper from the people who are supposed to build an electric car of their own, having different charging plugs on the two continents doesn't make much sense. If Teslas are meant to be able to go cross-country using the Supercharger network, why shouldn't they also be able to skip from one continent to another?
Buying cars from the competition is also something every manufacturer does, and it's the only way to effectively benchmark your own products against those it will face once out on the market. In the case of full-electric SUVs, Audi had it pretty easy as the Model X was the only purchase necessary. However, getting its hands on one might not have been as easy as forking out the $100,000+ needed to secure one.
As you're probably already aware, it's pretty hard to find a Tesla Model X. The Palo Alto company had certain issues with some of its parts suppliers, so the production schedule has been thrown off its initially planned route. Since then, it's been an upstream battle to make up the lost time and try to meet all the demands. But for all its efforts, European deliveries haven't even started yet.
So Audi definitely had to buy a US version and have it shipped over. It's unclear whether it was acquired as a new vehicle through a third party or it's pre-owned, but it doesn't even matter that much. What matters, though, is that since it's a US import, it uses a different Supercharger plug than the European models, something this alleged Audi engineer found out the hard way.
StefanKV, a member of the TFF forum and Tesla Model S owner, spotted the scene at the Tesla Supercharger in Schweitenkirchen. Apparently, as Electrek reports, the driver of the Model X attempted to charge the car but had to call it quits after realizing the charger didn't match the plug on the car.
While it's pretty funny to laugh at such a colossal blooper from the people who are supposed to build an electric car of their own, having different charging plugs on the two continents doesn't make much sense. If Teslas are meant to be able to go cross-country using the Supercharger network, why shouldn't they also be able to skip from one continent to another?
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