[WhompingWindows]

Well, Tesla has done a bit of work with other automakers, but it's probably not in their shareholders' best interest to give away their huge lead in BEV tech.

So, why doesn't Tesla build that cheaper, smaller, lower-range car? It's probably because the profits in it are much smaller, and they need profits to justify their insane valuation. Every quarterly report on TSLA is sliced apart by thousands of analysts, is it in their best interest to make less profit and do slightly more good by electrifying slightly more miles? What if they went bankrupt or lost on a bunch of funding due to this strategy, and then BEVs would be set back a decade?

I'd buy the modest car myself, yes, but I don't think that it's the most financially sound way to proceed...their strategy of starting at the high-end, low-volume side seems to have worked well, so that's what they're sticking with. FWIW, I think the Model 3 is already even on costs with the plurality of new vehicle purchases in America, which with options often range from 30-50k depending on the make.