I think it makes sense to do an ASIC later, but not now. Chip development is expensive and risky. They ought to at least start selling a product with positive gross margin first.
Its possible that they have tried that and the market isn’t giving them what they need at the price they want. I do mostly agree with you though; its the economics of the car thats gonna supercharge adoption.
EDIT: another commenter mentioned that their platform is used by other companies (VW perhaps?). With that information, it might make more sense to do this.
