I'm not a "car person", so forgive me if this is wildly off, but it always seemed like Tesla was going for the market segment of "not super rich, but wealthy enough to afford luxury"... That is, it's been positioned as a 'luxury' brand. Dropping prices doesn't seem like it would be productive in that context. (Quality improvements, as you mentioned, certainly will, tho.)

> their self driving tech recently had a step change in functionality

Can you please expound on this? What does this mean in more concrete terms?