Innovation and capitalism are amazing forces in dealing with global dynamics. We've got sky high oil prices, instability in the region that oil comes from and a global warming threat that many attribute to our use of fossil fuels. So what do we do? We innovate....this is just the beginning!!

OK, right - I agree $100,000 autos are innovative and certainly capitalistic, they scarcely address global dynamics. Capitalism excels at increasing the wealth and pleasure of people with capital; global dynamics victimize the poorest first and most in every calamity. The safe get safer; the people at risk perish.
Not that I don't find the Tesla amazing!

Amazing!

We don't need expensive collectors items, we need affordable solutions to our problem with fossil fuels. Tesla was about helping people achieve more with less. He wanted to modernize the world. He probably would be selling these at $10,000.00 instead of $100,000.00

To Masbury and skwirlinator: The high end technologies of the past, if successful, become the mainstream available to all technologies of tomorrow. See what happened with cellular phones. The rational behind the Tesla is sound: It will promote a technology that is badly needed. By selling first to the rich, it may gain the opportunity of becoming cheaper and widely available.

We can only hope so

Agreed - it's a possibility. But capitalism goes where the money is, and it remains to be seen whether significant good will come of it. But hey, I find them awesome, too. I just don't want us to wax too reverent about capitalism's contribution to the world here, till it's clear a contribution has been made.

Developing a new technology is a two step process: you can get money from the government for R&D if you tell thim it can be used to kill bad guys; you can make it cheap if it can be turned into a mass-produced toy.

One of the reasons computers and other electronic devices are cheap now is because, in the 1980s, demand for home video games spurred chip manufacturers to develop better mass-production techniques (I was in the game industry back then).