How is Tesla's supposed claim they solved electrical driving misleading?
The Model S targeted a new market entirely. Nobody had tried to do a luxury sedan EV and kodus to Tesla for spotting that niche, but that was not the goal that everyone else was chasing. It was something else entirely.
From an economics and from a technology point of view, building an $80k EV with decent range is insanely easier than building a $15k EV. Even if it has to be a luxury car and look good. It still gives you that $20k leeway to equip you car with a massive battery.
The misleading part was trying to claim that they had solved the problem that everyone else was working on, when in fact they had not. And they still have not today as evidenced by the $35k price tag of the Model 3.
Not so much: The actual Cannonball record is a bit over half the EV one -- 28 hours and 50 minutes -- and Roy himself drove it in 31 hours and 4 minutes. I'll be curious how much of their journey was charging time, a figure someone will probably extract from their GPS track soon.