That's been Tesla's business plan for quite some time, use luxury cars to fund the company to mass production. It isn't news, but it does seem out of context.
Sorry, I tried finding a citation for that. It's in some Elon video from the past month or so.
In practice, they've used stock dilution and debt to fund the business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Top_selling_coun...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4
Model S 2015: 25,202
Toyota RAV 4 2015: 315,412
In the US, the best selling vehicle the Ford F-Series which sold 780,354 in 2015
So I wouldn't say it's not mass produced, but it hasn't hit full economy of scale, and isn't designed to.
Compared to a comparable line of luxury cars, for instance the BMW 5-series, the volumes are relatively low: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_5_Series#Production_and_sa...