Comment Re:The obvious question: (Score 2) 236
Similar attitudes? I dunno, Tesla seems to be building luxury EVs and google want's to turn your car into a self driving spam box since you can focus your attention on ads during your commute time.
That's probably going to be fine for mass marketed cheap crap, but probably not if you are trying to sell 80k+ luxury cars.
The Ford Model T cost $850 in 1909. The average hourly wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour. That is a luxury price for a car. 5 years later as demand rose and production capacity expanded the price cut in half. The successor to the Model T was the Model A which, almost 20 years later, cost $500. Building luxury cars gets you a brand name, it brings in capital, and it lets you develop and expand production capacity. As your costs go down you can lower prices and expand into more economically priced models.