An excellent observation of Elon's hands-on, playfully deft manipulation of expectations and excitement this past spring leading up to that ER. (Don't forget the battery swap demo.) Something that needs to be taken into consideration is the amount of time that Elon Musk is actually spending at the helm of Tesla Motors. His first love is SpaceX and that venture has undoubtedly taken a lion's share of his mental and emotional capacities since last spring. (Thank goodness he handed off the Hyperloop after brain-storming it for a short time.)
SpaceX has some pressing and critical benchmarks coming in the next few months:
http://www.spacex.com/missions#future-missions-header Elon commented on how stressful this particular launch was.
They just delivered their first commercial payload to orbit at the end of September after launch delays. SpaceX attempted their first reusable recovery (proof of concept of their unique business model) of the 1st stage booster, which was partially successful. I'm sure everyone has seen video of the hovering Grasshopper (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t15vP1PyoA), then the most recent launch with the first stage re-firing for reentry after separation, and the still shot of the booster 3 meters above the ocean, totally intact, before losing balance and splashing down. Now that's hair-raising, science fiction-level engineering audacity and accomplishment. Tesla might be taking a back seat, as it were.
That September launch, with its delays and post-mission fact-finding and re-engineering to solve the rotating propellant issue that spoiled the planned ocean touchdown has to have taken an immense amount of Musk's time at the end of Q3 leading up to this Earnings Report.
SpaceX has a full slate of upcoming commercial flights, including a NASA ISS resupply mission. That company and its current position are far more technically demanding and financially critical than Tesla Motors right now. The man needs to be cloned. Or his lead executives given more authority?
Please feel free to move this if it's too off-topic.