I'm not sure they understand that the whole point of electrification is to pair it with sustainability, ie not trying to do "the fastest car" which consumes more, but on the contrary to make smaller car that are better suited to cities
Cars are weird. They are a ubiquitous mode of transport, and also a stylized representation of personality.
A successful, normal car manufacturer makes a handful of ridiculously expensive, fast, uncomfortable, cool-looking sports cars. These don't make a profit: they serve as advertising and marketing.
They tell the consumer that some of the same technologies are used in the aspirational sports cars that they sell to enthusiasts. And those share a marketing name with the sporty coupes and hatchbacks that they sell to people who tell themselves that they like to drive.
Tesla's Roadsters were expensive, impractical, and eye-catching. They served as a proof-of-marketing-concept for the Model S... which was expensive, eye-catching, but more practical. And more variations became less expensive, less eye-catching, and generally more practical.
Assuming Tesla still exists in ten years, you should expect to see a cheaper smaller version of the 3, and a long-range minivan.
Electric cars have long had a reputation of being slow, golf cart like, and generally a silly idea. Tesla snapped that perception a bit, but built the idea that electric cars are for tech bros and bougie folks.
Cars like this help break other reputational barriers to the adoption of EVs. Someone sees this and it puts to rest the idea that EVs are slow or ugly necessarily.
It's also a marketing stunt to sell their technology to other automakers.
I think they perfectly understand the point of electrification.
if humanity were only about efficiency we would be eating soylent green.
Yup, this is one of the reasons I got a Model 3 Performance rather than a Nissan GT-R.
Incredibly powerful ICEs end up being horribly inefficient. Having 500+ horsepower means getting 20 mpg while cruising.
There's probably a limit, where having larger motors starts to lower efficiency, but at the ~450 hp level of a M3P, it isn't being hit.
It'd be interesting to see the range on this 412 kph Nevera when it cruises at 120 kph (~75 mph).