Fans of electric falcon-winged sport utility vehicles rejoice! The Tesla Model X is on its way. Tesla's Fremont, Calif. plant is in the process of retooling to produce what will likely be the hottest new SUV in America.
I say that not to make a fire pun, but because I have a feeling the Model X will easily replace the Model S sedan as America's "it" car when it goes on sale in early 2015 or so.
Bloomberg reports that Telsa is idling production for a $100 million upgrade that includes more robots and reworked assembly lines to start building the Model X at the end of this year.
"This represents the single biggest investment in the plant since we really started operations and enables us for higher volumes," [Tesla spokesman Simon] Sproule said by phone yesterday. "It gets us ready to build X and to do it on the same line as the S."
Production is set to resume within two weeks. Before the revamp the plant was pumping out an impressive 800 units per week.