When Tesla announced an SUV as part of their electric vehicle lineup, the motoring community as a whole took notice. At least a few cornerstones were introduced with that SUV, a battery-powered creation that Tesla Motors calls their "Model X."
Among those "cornerstones" that come with the Model X are step-in seating and a set of mid-mounted, gullwing doors that make standing access in the crossover's cab possible, even for the tallest adult passengers.
But there's a twist: even with the truck-like wheelbase and substantial carrying capacity that Tesla's new crossover offers, it still doesn't fail to amaze at the performance end. In fact, sales representatives from Tesla's Topanga store in Woodland Hills, California have claimed that the Model X can even surpass the performance of Stuttgart's beloved, Porsche Cayenne turbo.
So what does this all mean to the physically-challenged commuter who relies on Access Paratransit, MTA and other mass transit outlets? It presents to that challenged commuter not only the opportunity to drive a vehicle that is practical, but one that balances this "practicality" with a sense of "bad-ass" that never before has been accessible to the disabled community.
Presenting Solar Mobility, a motoring program proposed to work in conjunction with Tesla and the San Fernando Valley's own, MobilityWorks, to bring electric motoring to the challenged enthusiast.
MobilityWorks has been serving the Valley's adapted motoring demands for several years at this point, and with the carrying capacity and structural rigidity that's offered with Tesla's Model X, it's easier now than ever to balance wheelchair accessibility and control, with Beamer-like performance and swag.
The "control" part, however, is really what becomes the most important part of Solar Mobility's services, because working with Permobil, the powerchair market's most premium manufacturer, Solar Mobility would become the first ever, accessible program to integrate the power wheelchair's console technology with the vehicle's electronics.
What this essentially means is that we would work in conjunction with Permobil and MobilityWorks, to develop hardware/software integration that allows the driver to not only dock the chair into the Model X's cab space, but using the best in commercial software and circuitry, the chair's joystick and console would actually be able to control and power the Tesla crossover.
Will Solar Mobility be the future for the physically-disabled commuter?! With the aid of some high-tech resources and a proper marketing team behind them, we sure hope so!
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