Musk told host Tom Ashbrook that the “absolute goal of Tesla from the beginning has been to provide a car that you can afford. There is no effort spared to try to get there as soon as humanly possible.” He went on to put a potential price tag on Tesla models in the near-term and longer-term future:

I think the sports car is cool, but really we want the mass-market car, that’s what we want to get to, as soon as we possibly can. We’re trying to grow as fast as we can to do that. I feel pretty confident we can get to a compelling sub-$30,000 car in five years. And one thing I should also point out is although the sedan will be $50,000, because the cost of electricity is so much less than the cost of gasoline and you’ll be able to lease our car or finance our car, buying our Model S will be equivalent to buying maybe about a $35,000 gasoline car, when you take into account the lease payments of a gasoline car versus the electric car and the cost of electricity versus gasoline. So it’s more affordable than it first seems. Even so, we’re working as hard as possible to get to that third generation car.

Musk added that Tesla has “a potential secret project that could advance that schedule, but I can’t talk about that because we don’t know if it will transpire.” He also addressed the issue of American competitiveness in the electric car market worldwide. Germany and China, among others, are already moving fast.  When Tom asked whether he could see the U.S. becoming an important manufacturing center for electric vehicles, Musk replied, “Absolutely, I think the United States will probably be either the first or second largest manufacturer of electric cars. The only competitor realistically is China.”

And here’s an update on another electric car angle that On Point has been pursuing. One of Musk’s competitors in the race for an electric car future is another young entrepreneur, Shai Agassi, CEO of Project Better Place. Agassi believes that building a network for battery distribution is crucial in terms of achieving large-scale use of electric cars (he’s working with Renault). Earlier this month, he unveiled a new breakthrough at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Agassi appeared on On Point earlier this year. He explained his vision to us this way:

What we brought in, which was somewhat of an innovation, is the concept of switching your battery, on the freeway, on the long drive. So if you go from New York to D.C., somewhere in the middle of the drive, you would go into what we call a switch station. It looks and feels somewhat like a car wash. Only instead of washing your car, an arm comes from below the car, takes out your depleted battery and puts in a full battery in its place. And within a minute or two, you’re back on the road. So it’s actually faster to do it than to fill up gasoline.

It’s a lonely time to be a car salesman.

Auto dealerships are empty all over the country. Many are closing up shop. The big boys are begging for bailouts in Washington. The iron on the lots is not moving.

But over the last century, those showrooms have moved a lot of iron. A lot of cars and dreams, flash and horsepower and sex appeal. A lot of deals.

A colorful new history of the buying and selling of cars in America brings it all back. The rituals. The dickering. The jimmied odometers. And says it all goes back to literal horse trading.

This hour, On Point: It’s time to remember how cars were sold.

You can join the conversation. What’s your best, your worst, story of wheeling and dealing on the showroom floor? Why is buying a car not quite like buying anything else?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Fremont, California, is Steven Gelber, a professor of history at Santa Clara University and author of “Horse Trading in the Age of Cars: Men in the Marketplace.”

And from Versailles, Kentucky, we’re joined by  Jack Kain. He’s the owner of Jack Kain Ford and has been in the auto sales business for over 50 years.  He’s on the board of directors of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Ford workers assemble the new 2008 Ford Focus in Wayne, Mich., May. 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Talk about automotive irony.

Centennial celebrations in Michigan this week. The 100th anniversary of the founding of General Motors. And the 100th anniversary of the rollout of the Model T — the “Tin Lizzie” that made the Ford Motor Company.

And both American automotive giants, plus Chrysler, are in crisis. Billions in losses. Plummeting sales. Talk of bankruptcy.

With four-dollar gas, the SUV-truck parade is over. Ford, announcing this week it will massively retool for compacts. GM wants to plug in electric. But is there time?

This hour, On Point: The U.S. auto industry, up against the wall.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Bill Vlasic, Detroit bureau chief for The New York Times.

Walter McManus, director of automotive analysis at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. He formerly worked for General Motors, where he developed models to forecast vehicle sales and created tools to stimulate new product development.

David Magee, author and auto analyst, he appears frequently on Fox News and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe. He’s the author of “How Toyota Became #1″ and “Turnaround,” about Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.

John Wolkonowicz, senior analyst and forecaster for Global Insights, he worked as a product planner for GM and Ford.

As stock markets around Asia and the world headed south today, India’s finance minister tried to calm the selling: “Look,” he said, “India’s economy is headed for a booming 9 percent growth this year.” So he hopes.

And what will Indians spend that plenty on? India’s industrial giant Tata hopes they will soon be spending it on a new car: the Nano. The cheapest car in the world. $2500 to get your family off the scooter and into a four-door five-seater.

The world’s near-poor may say “hooray.” Environmentalists are shouting “calamity.”

This hour, On Point: a car for the global masses, and what it means for the world.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John Paul MacDuffie, co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT and associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Lee Schipper, director of research for the World Resources Institute Center for Transport and the Environment and visiting scholar at the University of California Transportation Center.

The warning bells could hardly be louder: oil at $90 dollars a barrel on Friday and polar bears bobbing on too little ice.

If global warming and war in the Middle East were provoked by a century of fossil fuels and cars, just maybe changing cars can change the problem.

The race is on for cars that would turn their back on oil, and radically trim their impact on the earth. Detroit has not led — but it could. America has not been the winner, but it might.

This hour, On Point: for the planet, for the country, for a 21st century ride — the global race for the car of the future.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Vijay Vaitheeswaran, co-author of “Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future.”

Joseph White, Detroit bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, in Japan for the Tokyo Car Show.

Peter Coy, economics editor at Business Week.