Everyone who's looking at Tesla as if they were an automotive company is making a crucial mistake: they are not. Tesla is a technology development company, much closer to software development, which incidentally happens to build cars.

In broader terms, Tesla is very much like Apple: they reached the holy grail of marketing - having a devoted customer base which oftentimes transcends to fandom, headed by a CEO who has managed to build a cult around his own personality. Musk is adored by Tesla fans exactly like Steve Jobs was adored by Apple fans. And Tesla owners, after paying premium price for the product, are happy and go around evangelizing about it FOR FREE. That is the most amazing result a company can achieve.