For the most part, I agree and feel your frustration. And yet, if you'll indulge me to play the devil's advocate for a moment:
Setting realistic goals are pretty easy. If you think it'll take four years to bring the car to market, then just say it'll take six, and presto! You are likely to easily meet your goal and everybody is thrilled.... except they aren't. They're too busy yawning to remember anything you said. This is why GM and Ford and many others are just so darn exciting. We'll bring something out at some time when WE think that you'll want it. And boy, we'll just NAIL those goals.
Now... if instead, you decide that you'll try for TWO years instead of the four, even if you miss the goal by 50% you're still way ahead of everybody else. In some ways, I see the end result as being a net benefit to set unrealistic goals and try really hard for them, than to set easy goals and yawn your way toward meeting them.
It's just how my opinion of Musk's goals for Tesla has shaped itself in my head over the years. Yes, he's missed goals like crazy. And yet, he's exceeded anybody else's "realistic goals" by a wide margin. Can we have one without the other? I'm not sure. Does it really matter what the "goals" are, if the result is good? I'm not sure.
Remember that 100% of the industry, and most of the general population thought that a realistic goal for Tesla by now would be utter and complete failure. And ooops! They've now produced three of the world's best cars just six years since the first S rolled off the line. So it may be a better plan to hold the rest of the world accountable for *their* failed and negative "goals" for the company.
thoughts now that we're wildly off-topic?