People complaining about Elon's charisma are missing a lot of Tesla's history and brand. It has a very significant customer base that almost consider themselves part of the company (e.g. throwing parties for employees at a Tesla store). Part of the reason is because Elon Musk treats these events not as a marketing presentation but basically like someone showing off their latest creation to their family (a lot of customers are invited to the events).

Also, Tesla is seeing awesome success right now, but there was a time (pre Model S) when Elon Musk was basically begging customers to trust him and keep their preorders because they were close to going bankrupt (eventually a govt loan combined with the faith those customers placed in Elon Musk is what saved them). He had enough charisma to convince a significant chunk of people to give him a significant amount of money when it was looking like the company would not even be there a few months from then. Tesla's brand is that they genuinely care for their customers (and I have not seen any reason to disbelieve that so far), and Elon Musk's presentations while not spiffy help reinforce that.

Caught the tail end of the event. Elon definitely comes across as genuine and a real person. That said, a little practice in the stage presence / showmanship department could certainly help things flow smoother and amp up the excitement a bit; something this brand and its cars deserve!

He's claiming 6% possibility of injury during high speed collision. Imagine any other CEO saying something similar for their product - Elon is the man!

Any other suit would say "Five star" over and over.

The doors opening in that narrow space; crowd went insane.

Livestream link: http://livestream.com/accounts/4186560/events/4387735/player

It's important to note - these events happen on MST, not PST. That's 'Musk' Standard Time.

Elon Musk is a terrible speaker but it works because he's so genuine.

The Model 3 will be my first car, unless my circumstances necessitate that I have one sooner. The stuff that Tesla is doing is just so bonkers cool. Not only that though, I'm sure it's going to be safe, reliable and fast.

Been waiting 45 minutes now. Some updates are available on

http://fortune.com/2015/09/29/live-tesla-model-x-event/

I admire Tesla as a company, but I can't help but wonder why they still have Elon Musk do the entire presentation himself. Sure, he's their superstar, but he comes off as a very underprepared public speaker. I wish they had him do an introduction, and then have a spokesperson do the bulk of the talking. Instead, he's showing off these new and amazing products with nearly no charisma and enthusiasm.

If the crowd keeps cheering every time Musk takes a breath, it's going to be a long night. Imagine if they did this at the board meetings.

Late as usual. If any Tesla event ever starts on time, I'm going to miss the beginning because I won't tune in for 30 minutes.

The car looks absolutely beautiful. Sadly, as much as I want to go electric, I have no use for it, at $140K for an SUV I expect a lot more than this.

I think the falcon doors solve a non-existing problem while parking. I can't remember the last time this was an issue, with or without kids, with or without cargo or bags on the back seat of either an SUV or a minivan.

The same is true of the third row seat. We've had both SUV's and minivans with third rows. Never an issue, even for adults.

The falcon wings are very cool from a technological perspective but a complete non-starter for me. Bikes, surfboards and other stuff need to go on a roof rack. I can't see any way to transport our Maas rowing shells on this thing. They are 24 feet long and have to go on the roof. I've even brought home 2x4's and sheets of plywood from Home Depot on top of SUV's and minivans.

Can you open the falcon wing doors by hand if you have no power? I'd be surprised if this was not possible.

Towing is another aspect of this car that is likely to disappoint outside of a stage. If anyone expects to be able to do 250 miles while towing a 5,000 lbs trailer on anything other than an absolutely flat road with a 60 mile per hour tail winds they are going to be disappointed. As drag increases so will current draw and electrical losses, which will be constant and very significant. Weight is more of a factor on non-flat roads, which is nearly 100% of them anywhere I've been. I'd be surprised if the actual range while towing is much more than half the rated non-towing range.

What's good?

Crash performance is fantastic!

HEPA filter: Unreal. Nice.

It looks amazing.

It's electric!

I sincerely think Tesla should have come up with a new acronym for Model X: LUV - Luxury Utility Vehicle. That, no doubt, it is.

Curious how much the Whole Foods bags from the frunk cost as a product placement.

I found a Periscope stream on Twitter, keeping an eye on that to know when the event starts.

Hitting play on the live stream logs a 403 forbidden from Akamai on the official stream, I'm not confident it'll work when there's actually some content.

I'm on the market for a car in Bay area and was considering Tesla until met with somewhat uninspiring people at Tesla dealership delivering conversation in kind of "Yes. No. Thank you" manner leaving me with impression that they were busy with something more interesting than my presence and hoping i won't keep asking these stupid questions about tesla cars.

Were i suppose to make an appointment to avoid being an intrusion factor? Not sure how it works there.

Their self-guided, touch screen TV was way more entertaining but not enough to convince me to become customer though.

Looks nice. Is this really an SUV, though? It looks like a sedan.

Not just available now, but the cars are being given directly to the initial buyers right on stage.

He seemed to get a bit technical when talking about filters. I wish he had been more clear and described exactly what the use of filters were to normal people. In that when you're in the vehicle, you'll be breathing in less toxins emitted by other vehicles etc.

Tesla events always start late. Powerwall event started 40 minutes late.

Anybody knows the price?

First time I have seen a HEPA filter as a central feature of a car. Tesla certainly understands the main reason people buy SUVs: feel safer

Is there a reason why Tesla events happen at night?

Finally it starts, 52 minutes late.

Beautiful and everything so far, but looks and demeanor wise it's like a full size car.

You don't see how one looks better than the other?

"Stay with us at our 5-star hotel!"

"Stay with us, there's a 6% chance you will get hurt if there's an accident!"

This gives you a good description: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-...

With graphs!

He's claiming they did better than 5 stars, similar to what Tesla claimed about Model S. Tomorrow, you can bet that the feds will be complaining.

He mentions both, goes above and beyond. The 6% approaches a theoretical 6-star rating.

Couldn't possibly disagree more. He comes off as genuine instead of as a script-reading marketing person. He really cares about the product and the end goal and every inch of this originates from him.

This is his version of enthusiasm. Steve Jobs wasn't any more "enthusiastic"....he was soft-spoken and straightforward, too, he just didn't stutter/hesitate the way Elon naturally does, so he came across as much smoother.

If you think not having Elon out front and center for this company would be a good thing, you've really not grasped the symbiotic bond between him and his companies and his customers.

This is just another way Tesla is unique-- they don't overmarket everything, they don't run ads, they don't have some slick super-model announce their products. The main engineer, the guy who designed it, talks about it in his own way. I wouldn't have them change a thing.

I think I like it better with Elon, than if there was some random sales pitch person with a perfectly rehearsed and forcefully over-enthusiastic presentation. It's a combination of respect for the man, and a sense in which we're geeking out over the features together in an informal and relaxed manner. Something like that.

I really love his style. He has a very persistent values-based set of talking points (environment, safety, not sucking, doing cool shit), and he delivers those in the same way that he would if he had lunch with you and his aunt, and he were nerding out about his values.

Whether it's a chosen style or just how he is, to me, it works and feels genuine in a way that's charming. As he talks, I can imagine him sitting down with his engineers saying "Does this = good for the environment, improve safety, reduce car suckage, and is it cool?" And, I can further imagine him digging in to fix it if the product doesn't match, like with diagrams, and left over space x physics books, and a cool napkin he drew on in the shower with a strut design that would be better..

No PR person could ask for more from a lead presenter, seriously. You can imagine him doing that too, I bet, and that's a key and critical part of the tesla brand.

Tesla are building a great brand and part of that comes from the presence of a visionary like him. I think a lot of people respect the fact he doesn't allow a PR person to BS the audience. But hey, they've come this far doing it this way so I don't see a need to change now.

If there had been charisma and enthusiasm propped up on the stage, I'd have suspected the Model X isn't that good after all. Elon just let the car speak for itself.

People respond to that. Makes me feel like he believes in the product and is not some gypsy.

Because it matters. Would you rather hear about any Tesla news from elon musk or some random pr person they hired?

People get Teslas because they want something different. If you put the normal carnival barker salesman up there prospective customers will come away thinking "Hey, that kind of sounds like every other pitch at the car show I went to."

Who is "they"? You think somebody is forcing Musk to do those presentations? Elon Musk is the CEO. He does the presentations himself because that's his decision and that's what he wants.

If your product is good enough you shouldn't need showmanship.

Made me cringe when customers came up to drive off with their cars. Really felt like a Samsung tier presentation.