Tesla’s “unexpected” new product reveal postponed til Wednesday

Agreed - except to increase cash flow to get to build >500k Tesla 3 fast enough.

They're climbing a mountain of risk at this point. If the first T3 production year is too low in quality and/or quantity, the rest of the reservations could evaporate, especially as the rest of the industry is finally embracing electric.

A utility version of Tesla X could churn out some hard needed cash.

Motorcycle manufacturing is a ~$4.4bn industry, and there were about as many Toyota Camrys sold in 2015 as there were on-highway motorcycles, so the market opportunity there is very limited. Motorcyclists as a demographic tend to be conservative in their preferences (for example, see the debate over ABS, Harley Davidson), as well as very cost-sensitive. The machines themselves are very sensitive to weight, and even the best batteries can't compete with gasoline for energy density which either means very short range (see Zero's offerings) or very heavy bikes (see the late Mission Motorcycles' 550lb R). Finally, there are very few engineering synergies between motorcycles and cars so cost savings by parts reuse is negligible.

Tesla's historical model of starting with a premium offering wouldn't work because even the best LiIon motorcycle couldn't compete with a petrol-powered competitor in any objective measure except for environmental friendliness... which is insufficiently compelling to the typical rider to open the market.

Motorcycles are very cool, and I'm an avid long-time rider, but e-bikes are necessarily a niche of a niche. Tesla is looking for hockey-stick growth over the medium term.

Edit: forgot to add that US automobile manufacturing output was ~$61bn in 2015.