Tesla Motors' Elon Musk says Model X to arrive in fall

Tesla Motors plans to release its SUV crossover, the Model X, in three to four months, CEO Elon Musk said. Tesla Motors is also well into construction and planning for its Gigafactory outside Reno, Nevada, which is expected to open 2017.

If you love the idea of owning an electric vehicle from a start-up automaker but find the Tesla Model S too small for your rugged/schleppy/soccer-parent lifestyle, we have good news: according to Bloomberg, Tesla is on-track to deliver its new Model X crossover within the next three or four months.

That comes directly from the mouth of CEO Elon Musk, who made the announcement yesterday during Tesla Motors’ annual shareholders meeting in Mountain View, California. If the statement proves true, it will keep Tesla on its original production schedule, which had indicated that the Model X would appear during the third quarter of the year.

And even if it's delayed a bit, there's no denying that Tesla seems to have hit a turning point. True, the company is notorious for driving its PR team to shower the web with good news about Tesla, so we may be getting a slightly rosy view of its endeavors. However, it's clear that the investments that Musk and Co. have made since the company's launch in 2003 are beginning to pay serious dividends. In addition to the arrival of the Model X, which is likely to be a strong seller in crossover-crazy America:

• Tesla is well into work on its next car, the Model 3, which is due to arrive in 2017 with a starting price around $35,000.
• Tesla is also well into construction and planning for its highly anticipated Gigafactory outside Reno, Nevada, which is also slated for a ribbon-cutting in 2017.
• The Powerwall home battery that Tesla unveiled last month has been a huge hit with consumers, and deliveries are scheduled to begin this summer.

That's not to say that Tesla has an easy road ahead of it -- we saw evidence of that last week as Texas shut down the company's attempts to sell vehicles directly to consumers. Nor is it to say that Tesla is done with investments -- if anything, the company and its CEO's pockets are likely to get far shallower in the coming years. And let's not forget: there are many in the auto industry aiming to outdo Tesla with competing models.

However, those who initially wrote off Tesla as a moonshot company that would never succeed at selling electric cars may be in for a dinner of nice, warm crow. Musk clearly has much bigger, broader dreams than many imagined -- dreams of vertical integration, new products, and new markets. He and the company will undoubtedly have some stumbles along the way, but they'll be interesting stumbles, that's for sure.