Elon Musk Dismisses Tesla Challenges In Detroit, Talks Of Sales Growth

"Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk isn't shy about speaking his mind, and he did just that on the home turf of the Big Three U.S. automakers, at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show."

After the conclusion of press days, Musk spoke for more than an hour at the Automotive News World Congress on topics ranging from Tesla's current challenges to criticism of other automakers' green-car strategies.

Some analysts believe the current low gas prices will hurt sales of the Model S electric sedan. Tesla sales in China have also been low even though Musk is putting a lot of emphasis on that market.

Musk is undeterred though, he doesn't expect cheap gas to affect Tesla sales in the U.S. and claims the China slump is due to customers overestimating the difficulty of installing charging equipment.

He said that "miscommunication" had been corrected.

Read more: In fact, he said Tesla will try to outperform its original goal of selling 500,000 cars by 2020.