By Tarun Mehta
Why Elon and gang did NOT start by building a cheap electric car in the first place?
Samarth Dua gave a nice market perspective to the above question in the Quora post -
Tesla Motors: Why doesn't Tesla make small electric cars?
He made a point that Tesla wanted to build a high margin car first and sell to a niche and then use the proceeds from that to finance something even bigger (like the Model S, X and E).
I do not completely agree that Elon Musk was hoping to drive profits from one vehicle to another (Roadster never made any profit and the Model S is barely breaking even). They did however, serve as excellent marketing and validation points for Tesla.
Samarth Dua gave a nice market perspective to the above question in the Quora post -
Tesla Motors: Why doesn't Tesla make small electric cars?
He made a point that Tesla wanted to build a high margin car first and sell to a niche and then use the proceeds from that to finance something even bigger (like the Model S, X and E).
I do not completely agree that Elon Musk was hoping to drive profits from one vehicle to another (Roadster never made any profit and the Model S is barely breaking even). They did however, serve as excellent marketing and validation points for Tesla.