Tesla's chic is no match for BYD's China profits

Sydney

CARS are meant to be a volume business: The more you sell, the better your profit margin. So how come the world's most richly valued carmaker took four years to shift the number of cars that General Motors sells in three days?

To be sure, Tesla Motors recognises this flaw, and has ambitious plans to lift annual production almost 16-fold to 500,000 cars a year by 2020. Founder Elon Musk unveiled the Model X last week, an SUV that Tesla promises will eventually be price-competitive with luxury conventional-fuel models, and by 2018 he plans to be selling a mass-market car costing US$35,000.