So Honda had the EV Plus, as a pilot program, they leased out about 300 total between 1997 to 1999. The lease payment was 500 a month including insurance. From what I heard, Honda lost $300k for each one sold.
GM had EV1 and leased out about 800 units. They too lost shit loads.
Neither products had any impact and attracted no consumers. AND all of them were leased only vehicles and have all been crushed with the exception of few in the factory museum.
Ten years later, Tesla is the only legit evolution of EV in the market and the improvements are arguably minimal - when compare to other automotive related technology. It is not hard to see why GM and Honda dropped the idea.
Unfortunately for Tesla, they want to present this vehicle as a high tech super car running on electricity; therefore, the combination is deadly.
Tesla will be better off producing a mini hatchback or something, give it a legit long range and practicality. If that was the case, they would certainly sell more cars to Green Energy lovers. I bet you the Hollywood community alone will make that company profitable and can allocate more funds for R & D into that technology. If that happens, maybe there is immediate hope for electric car. Anything else right now are just dreams.
Than again, even if they can do 300 MPC, the tide is not on EV's side, with rising energy cost desired by our current politicians, it is doomed to fail.