The numbers in that article are sobering. You can tell in the opening quotes from Musk. He knows that selling to the choir is one thing, selling to the masses is an entirely different thing altogether.
The comparison between them and Apple, one that's often used by Tesla owners and enthusiasts has always puzzled me. It is no comparison at all. Because even if one person gets another to buy an Iphone, it's only so many hundreds of dollars, can be shipped in two days and can be returned for full refund if not satisfied.
A car cannot be returned once purchased (leased perhaps but you're still locked into the lease), it takes weeks if not months to build, has a significantly higher price, and depreciates considerably.
I disagree with Musk with his standing firm of the current retail model. I don't believe you can sell such a high priced item at the projected sales of 250,000 cars, at what is basically a Mall kiosk. They would become like cell phone wagons and Thomas Kinkade stores. Only without a product to give you.
And you can sit in a display car all you want but people are going to expect a test drive. And to count on everyone driving their friend's car to be convinced to buy is, in my opinion, folly. It will be here that Musk's stubbornness may come to a collision with reality.
As the article pointed out, the network required for service for this many cars sold per year will require far better logistics than Rangers with trailers.
But there's also the issue of competing technologies which I feel may doom Tesla more than charging stations, service centers and a battery factory issues. Natural gas and hydrogen are making inroads, albeit in early stages. Since EV production/sales is still in almost insignificant numbers comparatively to petrol cars, Tesla may never finish the race simply because in ten years, people could find that natural gas and hydrogen to be the preferred method of fueling and propulsion, not battery electricity.
