“The demand for Model 3 is insanely high. The inhibitor is affordability. It’s just that people literally don’t have the money to buy the car.”
Saying your product is in high demand when people can't afford it is pretty ridiculous. By that logic, demand for Ferraris is through the roof even though they only sell a few thousand a year.
Yes but Ferrari has no intention of making their product affordable for those that want it, even if they were able to.
Tesla wants to offer an affordable car that more folks can afford. It's been making steady progress in getting to a lower price point, but there are still A LOT of people that would buy a Tesla if it were just a bit more affordable.
Companies make products affordable by lowering the unit cost of the product (generally through increased efficiencies, economies of scale, substituted inputs, etc), not by cutting non-COGS operating expenses.
Reducing unit costs affects every unit sold equally, so it scales with sales growth. The benefits of cutting opex expenses is inversely correlated to sales growth.
Saying your product is in high demand when people can't afford it is pretty ridiculous. By that logic, demand for Ferraris is through the roof even though they only sell a few thousand a year.