Judging by that list, the notion that you can't make money off the unexotic underclass seems suspect. Even excluding Oil and Gas, the vast majority of the companies are not exactly luxury brands for the upper class.
He's actually working on it. You'll notice that the Roadster was super expensive ($90,000), but they rolled the money over into R&D to make the Tesla S ($60,000), money from which they will then roll over into R&D for an even cheaper vehicle. Elon's goal is to bring affordable EVs to the masses, which I think is pretty cool.
A Tesla representative gave a talk at my company recently, and supposedly the plan is to produce an EV at around $30,000. Tesla's supply-side partnership with Toyota still gives me hope for more affordable, ubiquitous EVs.
Less than $30k? You're going to need less than $15 for the underclass that this article is talking about; and even then those people are going to have to buy used.
One too many zeroes. The unexotic underclass would not even be able to afford the $3,000 dollar hybrid battery (Prius) replacement, much less a full EV battery.
Judging by that list, the notion that you can't make money off the unexotic underclass seems suspect. Even excluding Oil and Gas, the vast majority of the companies are not exactly luxury brands for the upper class.