A nine-year-old reviews the Tesla Model X

Editor’s Note: Verge transportation editor Tamara Warren regularly rides and reviews all the latest and greatest from the automotive industry, which means that as a by-product, her son Benicio also gets to take a spin from time to time. Her review of the Tesla Model S published earlier this month, so we wondered what nine-year-old Benicio thought of the Tesla experience. Below are his honest thoughts. —Natt Garun

I have been in lots of cars because my mom works for The Verge and she gets a new car every week. The name of this car is the Tesla Model X.

This car has new and improved car features from the cars I have been in. My favorite feature is the falcon door, so I’m going to start with that. They open by pressing a silver rectangle that is in the place a regular door handle would be for the car. After you press that, the door will start to open. If you want to open the door from the inside, you will have to push the button on the door frame. You can press the top of the button to open it and push the bottom of it to close it.

When we picked up the car at the Tesla store in Brooklyn, a man named David told Shrey, one of my best friends, and me about it. I took notes as I was listening to David, and then we were ready to jump in the car.

When we went outside, we were fascinated by the car’s design. The key is the same shape as the car. You can push any part of the key and open the trunk, the doors, or the extra trunk in the front. I would use the space to put extra baseball gear in there.

David was driving the car, but he told me to sit up in the front. He told us why the car was already on. It turns out that when the car senses the key it automatically turns on, and when you are in the car the driver will start driving. If you use Autopilot, it will even take over the steering, but David told me you should still keep your hands on the wheel.

David showed us how to navigate by pressing a huge screen and going to the map section. After he showed us that, we were ready to start driving. Shrey said the car was really cool, so that got me hyped up about it.

After that, David showed us how it could park itself. When the car finds a parking spot, it will pop up on the screen and ask you if you want to park there. If you say yes, it will park.

This car isn’t powered by energy from the sun. It’s just powered by a ton of batteries. You don’t have to use gas. All you have to do is find an outlet and plug it in and it will start charging. If you Supercharge the car, it will be full in as fast as 20 minutes.

My second favorite thing on the Model X is when you put it in Ludicrous Mode. You get to it by selecting the options on the screen. When you click on the selection, it will show you a kind of thing like hyperspace from Star Wars. Then when you drive, it will go a lot faster. So when David started driving, we put our heads back on the seats, and then we were going really fast and other people on the street didn’t even notice us. (That’s because there is no gas engine, so the car doesn’t make any noise.) I would think twice before crossing the street, if I saw a Tesla in the neighborhood.

I’m really energetic when I just sit around and I’m also a pitcher for the Huskies, our local travel baseball team. So after we finished the demonstration, Shrey and I took a break to act out the Detroit Tigers vs. New York Yankees. After that, we said goodbye to David and I headed to Coney Island with Shrey and my dad. The radio in the car is really good personally to me, because we got to listen to my favorite song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem on the way there.

As we were driving, we kept on asking my dad to do what David did and try Ludicrous Mode. But he kept saying no. (If any kids are reading: try to beg your parents to let you go fast in the car.)

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