What If Tesla’s Time Is Running Out?

Incrementalism doesn’t make for the best sales pitch, especially in Silicon Valley. That certainly wasn’t how Tesla Motors—now just Tesla Inc.—was sold to investors. When Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive officer, published his “Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” in 2006, he made it clear that the upstart electric vehicle maker’s sporty Roadster—described by one impressed reviewer as a “carbon-fiber mosquito”—was just the beginning: “The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium. … I can say that the second model will be a sporty four door family car at roughly half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable,” Musk wrote. -- More...