Tesla expanding

On Tuesday, January 13, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company may not be profitable until 2020 because it continues to invest heavily in expanding production. He said the company will "probably get to a few million cars per year" by 2025.

Musk faced reporters in a question-and-answer session originally scheduled to last 45 minutes. It ended up lasting twice as long. Some of the questions he fielded were skeptical of the company's prospects at a time when crude prices have dropped 60 percent since last year's peak - but the entrepreneur didn't seem worried.

Musk said he didn't think low oil prices would affect his company's award-winning Model S sedan or its Model X.

The Model S has been on sale since June 2012, and the Model X will go on sale in 2015. The latter is an all-electric crossover SUV with gullwing doors.

He didn't say whether he thought low oil prices might affect prospects for the company's smaller, cheaper Model 3, which is meant to compete with compact premium sedans like the BMW 3 series. Tesla's Model 3 will be unveiled in 2016 and won't go on sale until 2017 - and there's no telling where oil prices will be then.

Tesla has said the Model 3 will sell for about $35,000 (currently about 29,600 euros) and have a range of around 320 km before it needs recharging.

All roads lead to China

A crucial market for makers of premium automobiles is China. Tesla's sales there have been unexpectedly weak to date, Musk said, adding that Chinese car buyers had overestimated the difficulty in installing and maintaining battery-charging equipment. He said the "miscommunication" had been rectified and an uptick in sales was already in evidence.

Dennis Desrosiers of the automotive market research firm Desrosiers Automative Consultants sees Tesla's future in China, more than in North America.

In China, he said, it's conceivable that the government could at some point make electric vehicles mandatory, in order to help deal with the heavy air pollution that currently characterizes Chinese cities. Moreover, China would benefit from reducing its heavy dependence on imported oil.

Desrosiers told Germany's dpa news agency that "all roads lead to electric mobility," but he didn't believe Tesla would be able to hold onto its market-leading position in the long term. The more that major automobile makers move into the electric vehicle (EV) market, the more difficult it will become for Tesla to dominate the niche, he said.

Nissan, GM and BMW are among Tesla's competitors in the EV market, with the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt, and BMW i3 among several all-electric vehicle models on sale at present.

For now, however, EV producers don't see each other as competitors. The more EVs appear on the streets, the better for all of the producers - because these vehicles have yet to catch on with the general public as a mainstream choice. The real competition remains in fossil-fuelled cars.

That's a view echoed by Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. "Tesla isn't a competitor - they're helping us," Ghosn said. The high-end, good-looking, well-crafted, long-range Model S has provided EVs with an invaluable image boost since it went on sale two and a half years ago.

A charismatic entrepreneur with a green slant

In addition to co-founding Tesla, 43-year-old Musk founded the space rocket company SpaceX and co-founded payment systems provider PayPal and Internet city-guide publishing company Zip2.

Zip2, which the Musk brothers sold to Compaq corporation in 1999, was Musk's first startup; he co-founded it with his brother Kimbal in 1995, when Elon was 24.

Musk also serves as chairman of the board of SolarCity, which was co-founded by two cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, and remains the company's largest shareholder. SolarCity is presently the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.

In 2013, Musk put forward a concept for a high-speed, high-efficiency transport system he calls the Hyperloop, which would shoot transport capsules through a partially evacuated tube to reduce aerodynamic drag.

The Hyperloop is intended to outcompete high-speed train transport in terms of both speed and energy efficiency.

Many of Musk's projects are aimed at providing technologies that reduce carbon emissions.