Tesla founder Elon Musk often fires off surprising and controversial remarks that leave followers of the electric automaker scratching their heads. At this week's shareholder meeting, for example, Musk revealed that Tesla has a design for a personal submarine. Seriously.
Stranger still, this zany idea wasn't offered up by Musk out of the blue. For some reason, a shareholder at the meeting asked specifically whether Tesla is working on a car capable of land and sea travel. Who are these people, and what's next: a passenger seat capable of holding dinosaur friends? An ice-cream dispenser in the trunk?
The entire topic is surprising given that Tesla the carmaker-as opposed to Tesla the nascent submarine provider-only recently turned its first quarterly profit. It has suffered several unforced errors in recent years, from the overcooked and problematic gullwing doors on the Model X to the promised affordable Model 3 that, well, never actually ended up being quite as cheap as advertised. So, as cool as a submarine sounds, we feel as if Tesla should focus on its core business, that of building automobiles, before turning its attention under the sea. Luckily for Tesla, Musk agrees, since he dismissed the submarine talk at the shareholder meeting as a distraction.
