teslaIf you’ve followed with interest recent North Carolina legislative news linked to the Tesla electric car, you might want to check out the latest Barron’s cover story, which focuses on Tesla’s business-related challenges.

Tesla shares rocketed this year from $35 to $115 — lifting the Palo Alto auto start-up to a market value of $14 billion at May’s end — before easing back to a recent $102, where Musk’s quarter-interest in the company is still worth $3.4 billion.

It’s possible to admire Musk’s achievements, while still wondering if Tesla’s stock market fans are viewing its prospects through 3D glasses. The towering expectations now priced into the stock don’t account for the Grand Canyon leap that Tesla must make to reach its goal of cutting its car’s $90,000-plus sticker price in half. Electric-car batteries cost a heck of a lot, and today’s Tesla Model S owes its better-than-200-mile range to batteries costing tens of thousands of dollars. Industries and governments around the world have spent billions on battery research, but few expect to trim electric-car battery costs by more than 20%-30% by the planned 2016 launch of Tesla’s car for the Everyman. Perhaps Musk will confound the industry again, but if Tesla’s next-generation car can’t go the distance at half the price, its stock will head much lower.