Teslas are popular first and foremose because they are highly appointed and fun to drive. The 2017 P100D is the fastest production car on the market off the line (reaching 30, 40, 50, 60mph and the 1/4 mile). The secondary attraction is it's electric.

Is it better for the environment? Maybe... the primary advantage of an electric vehicle is that it's not dependent on any particular fuel like an ICE, meaning it can be charged with gasoline, diesel, solar, coal, wind, nuclear, fuel cell, propane, gas venting, water, etc, with new power sources being developed all the time, some more environmentally friendly than others, and some less costly than others.

Thirdly is its autopilot features, which so far have been proven to be better (safer) than human drivers. Each of these features can be found elsewhere, but Tesla puts them all in one vehicle.

Gas is only part of the savings. There is virtually no maintenance on them due to very few parts, and electric motors are designed to go 1 million miles, which is at least 4x a well maintained ICE. Factor all that in and you'll likely consider it a relative bargain.

I'm not gonna lie, that's impressive, even if it was 2 engines and 2 transmissions.

In the past year I unloaded a Honda and Acura each with 200k miles, and both engines still ran great. Even at an absolute best case scenario, the Tesla engines should still outlast all of those ICEs many times over. I can't wait for the secondary Tesla market to mature.

Jobs' only success was Apple computer (though success is an understatement). He was a great salesman and revolutionized a couple different industries, but Musk has revolutionized 3 entirely different industries with Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City. The fact that he can sell ideas, raise money, create indisputably beautiful cars, reusable rockets, and discuss astrophysics in detail with his rocket scientists makes Jobs look a bit pedestrian. Apple created the PC market, but Tesla and SpaceX were built from scratch to compete with major auto manufacturers and defense contractors, two industries that notoriously impossible to infiltrate. That gives me a fair amount of confidence that Musk will make sure Tesla will deliver.

That being said, Tesla's first batch of cars did cost more to produce than were originally priced, but they were all delivered and are fairly spectacular. The S3X was also priced before they actually know how much they cost to build, but they had to learn a LOT from the first round. IMO Tesla delivers even their pre-orders, they should be set for a long time. Their cars are simply nicer than most anything out there at the same price point.

I disagree, a friend of mine had an original Volt, they loved to drive it, and I think it is still the best looking hybrid out there. The original was nicer than the current body style, perhaps that's what you are referring to?

Yea I just finished reading an article about that. Apparently the ICE can assist the drivetrain as needed, which makes it closer to a full hybrid than most people initially thought. I can confirm it uses EV mode almost exclusively until the batteries are depleted... my buddy could go nearly 2 months without filling up while using it as a daily driver... 38 mile range is good enough for the majority of commutes, but Tesla 3SX will have nearly 6x that range, good enough for most day trips.

You can definitely replace the batteries on it. However the Leaf does have the worst resale value of any car in the industry, regardless of engine type, so I'm not sure it's the best comparison.

I'm still not understanding how you are concerned about maintenance costs after reading an article detailing the positive financial benefits of owning the Tesla relative to any other ICE, even with those repair costs. I've scrapped my last 3 cars at 200k miles because they were under water relative to the repairs needed, and the maintenance costs to get to that point were definitely higher than this article.
Also that $15k in gas savings pays for all those repairs 3x over.