NEWS The release of the Tesla Model XSeptember 30, 2015

Sep­tem­ber 29, 20115

http://​abc7news​.com/​a​u​t​o​m​o​t​i​v​e​/​t​e​s​l​a​s​-​f​i​r​s​t​-​s​u​v​-​t​h​e​-​m​o​d​e​l​-​x​-​t​o​-​m​a​k​e​-​i​t​s​-​d​e​b​u​t​/​1​0​0​8​6​23/

The very first cus­tomers who bought Tesla’s new brand new SUV, will get to drive them away Tues­day night.

The Tesla Model X is pricey, but right now, gas is not. Gas prices could be putting the future of elec­tric cars in danger.

Tesla’s Mod­elX will be the tech­nol­ogy motor company’s lux­ury SUV model. With a price tag of more than $80,000 it’s not the best option for sav­ing a few dol­lars by avoid­ing gas pumps, espe­cially since the price of gas has plum­meted over the last year.

“It’s not only that Saudi Ara­bia and the tra­di­tional oil coun­tries are flood­ing the mar­ket, we’re see­ing much more oil and gas being pumped in U.S. states in Canada. There is a glut of oil on the mar­ket because of new explo­ration tech­nolo­gies for fos­sil fuels,” said Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley pro­fes­sor Daniel Kammen.

Those falling gas prices might be hav­ing an effect on elec­tric car sales. This year, more than 72,000 plug-​​in vehi­cles, or EVs were sold, which is lag­ging behind last year’s sales by about 7,000 units.

But Kam­men at UC Berkeley’s Gold­man School of Pub­lic Pol­icy says elec­tric cars will likely con­tinue to grow for a few reasons.

“The price to go a mile in an elec­tric vehi­cle is about a third what it is to go, even with today’s gas prices, than to drive a com­bus­tion vehi­cle,” Kam­men said.

He says Cal­i­for­nia is under a man­date to have a mil­lion EV’s on the roads by 2020. And there are lots of incen­tives for car com­pa­nies and poten­tial own­ers, includ­ing HOV stick­ers and rebates.

Chevro­let is re-​​launching the Volt with a sticker price that’s sig­nif­i­cantly less than a Tesla.

“The 2015 Volt starts at $33,995 and that’s before a Fed­eral Tax Credit of $7,500 and in Cal­i­for­nia you can also apply for a $1,500 clean vehi­cle rebate,” said Gen­eral Motors prod­uct spe­cial­ists Darin Jesse.

It’s not clear how much longer gas prices will con­tinue to drop, but in the mean­time car com­pa­nies are hop­ing buy­ers will pay atten­tion to these EV options.