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Originally Posted by bb1857
I totally agree with you and your point actually makes my point more valid. He doesn't care about selling cars at a loss. He knows Wall Street will keep them propped up on the cult like following alone for many years which gives him time to validate and strengthen his proof of concept, which is that batteries are a very viable option for the future of the car and more(not today but getting close and not for everyone). Once he is happy with where the research is on the battery development I think you will see him dump the car company as fast as possible.
Think about it. Would you rather deal with the incredibly difficult pain in the ass consumer for each and every car sold or would you like to be the worlds largest battery supplier which is an industry that far exceeds that of the automobile industry? I'd take door number two every time and so would most smart businessmen. He will happily take every car companies money when it comes time for them to actually put a viable electric car out there and he will likely own nearly 100% of market share. I would call that absolute genius.
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I'll admit I've not read every piece of literature on Tesla (Musk), but I have been interested in the cars since they've come out (the Lotus-based Tesla) and I'm pretty well read on the subject. I have seen this argument that Musk's real goal is conversion of the worlds ICE-powered fleet to electric. But to say Musk started out with no intent to produce electric cars profitably I think is BS and something Musk conjured up to excuse his inability to produce his electric cars profitably. He's now convinced investors that his real goal is to become the worlds largest battery manufacturer. But batteries for what? Electric cars? Home solar electric systems? Industrial plants? I'm not sure. But why would he need to start a car company just to make that point? He's losing multiples of millions of dollars a month. Profits not available to him to further his R&D on battery technology. He could have become an electric drivetrain supplier to the automotive industry and still made his point. Look at LG Chem. The Korean company that is GM's main supplier for the Bolt. LG doesn't make cars (even though it is an industrial giant) but it has its hand in some serious electric car development. Its battery technology developed in conjunction with GM (for the Volt and now Bolt) is more advanced than Tesla's. GM will beat Tesla to the market by 2 years with an "affordable" 200+ mile EV. While Musk was unveiling yet to be completed Tesla 3 design, GM weeks before was posting video of the first Bolts traveling down the (low-rate initial) production line. A stark contrast. It's possible Musk has bitten off more than he can chew.
Fundguy1 makes some very good points that after more than a decade, electric cars are less than 1% of the market. And that if fuel range and recharging times are not brought near to their ICE counterparts the market will remain small for electrics. However while electrics are not for everyone, they do have a place in the market, just as Ferrari and Lambo et al. do. The automobile replaced the horse as transportation because it was a better product at a lower operating cost; the electric car is not that as compared to the ICE-powered car. I am quite interested to see how the Bolt will do in the marketplace.
I'm not a believer that Musk's original ultimate goal was total battery domination rather than thinking he was going to build a populate the earth with affordable EVs and make a profit doing it. Building a car company just to perform a proof-of-concept (for a battery business) is a bit hard to swallow in my book. The investment in the Giga factory is independent from producing Tesla cars. If there is no real market for EVs then what is the point of building batteries for it? He could have built the Giga factory without ever producing one Tesla S, X, or 3.