This is wasted labor. These people could instead spend their time more productively.
We have no shortage of good ideas or socially useful things to do. What we have is a problem with getting funding for these useful pursuits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
In this case there are probably some highly skilled people involved who were able to increase their know-how (doing research to make the car somehow be xxM$ worth) thanks to being funded by whoever bought the car, but the whole exercise generates probably very little intellectual value outside of this context.
Why do you assume that the R&D required to produce this vehicle is somehow wasted effort?