Worth noting:

>As Mr. Musk lays it out, the change is not so radical. In an email to employees, he said that 78 percent of Model 3 orders were already placed online, and that 82 percent of the model’s buyers made their purchase without a test drive.

They're losing at most ~22% of possible sales. And some of those people might still buy online.

A lot of this piece is economic crystal ball gazing and comparing the magic of a super safe, fast, fun, and wildly popular (self driving?!) car to existing car manufacturers.

Maybe someone at NYT wants to drive their stock price down so they can buy.