Elon Musk tells Detroit: Tesla exists because you wouldn't build good EVs

To an audience full of auto-industry executives in Detroit, Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO Elon Musk made a few bold statements on Tuesday: Tesla is growing, will turn a profit eventually, and was doing so in large part because the rest of the industry didn't want to build electric cars — at least ones that people would buy.

In a rare question and answer session at the Automotive News World Congress, Musk said he envisioned Tesla building "a few million vehicles" per year by 2025 — compared to less than 100,000 today. He said Tesla was only unprofitable because it was ramping up production for one new model, designing another and building a $5 billion battery factory, with regular profits expected by the time it launched a new small vehicle in 2020.

Musk added that Tesla was already sold out of the forthcoming Model X SUV through 2015, even though production had been delayed while the company perfected its "falcon wing" doors.

And as is his wont, Musk was both encouraging and a bit needling toward the industry establishment — urging a far wider production of electric vehicles while saying Tesla had profited only because regular automakers chose not to build good electric cars first.

"I really, strongly recommend making significant investments in electric cars," Musk said, noting that Tesla had offered to share its patents for free and allow other automakers to use its Supercharger network. "I think people won’t regret making those decisions."

Tesla was founded in part, he said, because it was "very important for there to be an example of an electric car that was great. There were no great electric cars."