People need to stop thinking of Tesla Motors as a car company.
It was never intended to make money on cars in the first place. It wasn't even intended to live more than a few years. Musk himself admitted that he expected it to make a big splash, lose a bunch of money, and then flame out. The point of the company was to accelerate the industry's move toward electric vehicles, and to help justify the existence of the Gigafactory. By the time the rest of the industry catches up, it won't matter if Tesla Motors gets kicked to the curb; all those shiny new electric cars will need a LOT of batteries, and Tesla will own most of the world's battery production.
The shift toward electric cars would have happened eventually, with or without Tesla. Elon Musk's genius was to see a way to get in the driver's seat and accelerate it. Meanwhile, America gets a new industry and walks another step toward energy independence and sustainability, Musk and his co-investors make a TON of money playing the long game, and we all end up with better products. Everybody wins.
Those benefits are also the point of the subsidies that Tesla Motors has gotten. We may debate the merits of subsidies writ large, but I think it's clear that the ROI will be there in spades.
It was never intended to make money on cars in the first place. It wasn't even intended to live more than a few years. Musk himself admitted that he expected it to make a big splash, lose a bunch of money, and then flame out. The point of the company was to accelerate the industry's move toward electric vehicles, and to help justify the existence of the Gigafactory. By the time the rest of the industry catches up, it won't matter if Tesla Motors gets kicked to the curb; all those shiny new electric cars will need a LOT of batteries, and Tesla will own most of the world's battery production.
The shift toward electric cars would have happened eventually, with or without Tesla. Elon Musk's genius was to see a way to get in the driver's seat and accelerate it. Meanwhile, America gets a new industry and walks another step toward energy independence and sustainability, Musk and his co-investors make a TON of money playing the long game, and we all end up with better products. Everybody wins.
Those benefits are also the point of the subsidies that Tesla Motors has gotten. We may debate the merits of subsidies writ large, but I think it's clear that the ROI will be there in spades.