Volkswagen Touareg vs Tesla Model X

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 30, 6:30AM EDT

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Volkwagen’s luxury sport utility vehicle (SUV), the Touareg, is more like the Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model X than most people would suppose. One of the differences between the two is that the Touareg is available immediately to customers. The waiting list for the Model X is a year long. How the power plants on each vehicle work it radically different. People are crowding the order list for the electric car but will not buy VW’s diesel. And there is the Tesla mystique, which makes the car a legend before the first one is sold. The VW’s image has been tainted by the parent company’s cheating scandal.

The Touareg 2016 base model sells for $42,750. For that, the driver gets a six-cylinder 3.6-liter engine that posts 23 mpg, and it operates with four-wheel drive. The top of the line TDI Executive with 21-inch alloy wheels has a starting price of $63,685 and runs on a 3.0-liter diesel engine that gets 29 mpg in highway driving. It has a panoramic roof, premium audio system, climate control, heated seats, rear-view camera, keyless entry, navigation system, overhead video camera, emergency braking, lane departure warning system and adaptive cruise control. If not for the diesel engine, it would be competitive with the high-end BMW X5 or Mercedes GLE.

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The Tesla Model X aims to take on all these high-end SUVs. For the most part, it more than succeeds. It is fast and big:

Model X is the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in history. Standard with all-wheel drive and a 90 kWh battery providing 250 miles of range, Model X has ample seating for seven adults and all of their gear. And it’s ludicrously fast, accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds. Model X is the SUV uncompromised.

It has safety features like those in other high-end SUVs:

Model X continually scans the surrounding roadway with camera, radar and sonar systems, providing the driver with real-time feedback to avoid collisions. Even at highway speeds, Model X will automatically apply brakes in an emergency.

And it has a sunroof and leather seats. Unlike the competition, the Model X has gull-wing doors and a system that keeps out pollen.

The Model X price begins at $75,000. The fastest and most luxurious model has a price of $140,000, putting it in a league with the Porsche Cayenne Turbo W, which has a price of $157,000. Both SUVs have 0 to 60 mph acceleration in under four seconds.

The Model X is an example of how luck plays a huge part in success. The electric motor has become the vanguard engine for cars and SUVs. The diesel engine’s appeal has been all but destroyed.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.