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Comment by overgard | Hacker News Reader

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_re...

Judging by that list, the notion that you can't make money off the unexotic underclass seems suspect. Even excluding Oil and Gas, the vast majority of the companies are not exactly luxury brands for the upper class.

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True, but very few of the companies in that list are in industries that entrepreneurs feel confident about entering.

Why would you want to enter the Oil/Gas industry when you can disrupt them thru Green industries ala Elon Musk ?

When is Elon Musk going to make an electric car that costs < $30,000 new though?

He's actually working on it. You'll notice that the Roadster was super expensive ($90,000), but they rolled the money over into R&D to make the Tesla S ($60,000), money from which they will then roll over into R&D for an even cheaper vehicle. Elon's goal is to bring affordable EVs to the masses, which I think is pretty cool.

http://www.teslamotors.com/fr_CH/blog/secret-tesla-motors-ma...

^--This is from way back in 2006. You'll notice that they've since produced the Model S, and seem to be following the plan pretty well so far.

A Tesla representative gave a talk at my company recently, and supposedly the plan is to produce an EV at around $30,000. Tesla's supply-side partnership with Toyota still gives me hope for more affordable, ubiquitous EVs.

Musk says in 3-4 years: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/tesla-repays-u-s-early-musk-w...

Less than $30k? You're going to need less than $15 for the underclass that this article is talking about; and even then those people are going to have to buy used.

One too many zeroes. The unexotic underclass would not even be able to afford the $3,000 dollar hybrid battery (Prius) replacement, much less a full EV battery.

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