From a Musk interview with Pelley a while back on SpaceX/Tesla:
>>Scott Pelley: How did you figure you were going to start a car company and be successful at it?
>Elon Musk: Well, I didn't really think Tesla would be successful. I thought we would most likely fail. But I thought that we at least could address the false perception that people have that an electric car had to be ugly and slow and boring like a golf cart.
>>Scott Pelley: But you say you didn't expect the company to be successful? Then why try?
>Elon Musk: If something's important enough you should try. Even if for you — the probable outcome is failure.