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.

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.