In the authorized biography Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance highlights Elon’s purchase of the submarine car:

Elon Musk paid $1 Million for the Lotus Espirit that Roger Moore drove underwater in The Spy Who Loved Me and wantes to prove that such a vehicle can be done. “Maybe we’ll make two or three [submarine cars,] but it won’t be more than that,” Musk told the Independent newspaper. “I think the market for submarine cars is quite small.”

Why would Elon Musk build submarine cars?

Well the answer could be “for the fun of it” or “as a PR stunt” or even “as a way to court the mega rich.” Though Musk has sought innovative ways of funding his companies in the past, he has never done something outside of the realm of usefulness. And he often defines “useful” the way others tend to define “species-saving” or “revolutionary.”

Couple this with the anecdote that appears in Vance’s last chapter,  a chapter entitled The Unified Field Theory of Elon Musk. All three of Musk’s companies work like a global military alliance, like three teams conspiring together against the big-moneyed principalities and powers that stand in the way of significant planet-wide progress. Namely: oil, auto, and defense companies for Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX respectively. Musk’s trifecta is one patent-sharing, product-swapping alliance. According to Vance, Tesla’s high-safety friction-welds started in the SpaceX factories. The turbocharger stations are powered by Solar City’s panels — a company that provides brown-out and blackout protection through Tesla’s battery technology. Solar City’s panels will likely be outfitted on the upcoming SpaceX satellite network and so forth.

That’s two pieces: the submarine car and the unified field theory.

But there’s a third piece that came to us recently with the advent of Model X deliveries:

In the official press release where Musk hand-delivered VIN numbers one through six of the Model X line, he was talking about the impenetrability of the air filtration system:

“You have air cleanliness levels equivalent to a hospital operating room in the car. When the car is operating at maximum capability — if you press maximum capability — you can’t even detect any viruses, bacteria, or spores. Zero come through. If there’s ever an apocalyptic scenario of some kind, hypothetically, you just press the bioweapon defense mode button. This is a real button. We try to be a leader in apocalyptic defense scenarios.”

Of course, he said the last bit in jest but then again, Elon’s humor is historically tied quite intimately to his vision. He has often found it both funny and invigorating to run off-the-record tests in the middle of on-the-record tests for SpaceX rockets whose launches NASA oversaw. He always plays the long-play, Elon, the corporate version of The Immortal Game.

So.

1. Elon Musk buys a submarine car and says he’ll make a couple.
2. He adds a bioweapon defense mode to the Model X that includes positive pressure such as in a hospital room.
3. His companies practice what Ashlee calls “the unified field theory” — sharing constantly and shoving tests for hidden innovations into the middle of known innovations.

Positive pressure, bioweapon defense mode, and an air-tight seal on an amphibious car that can transform from earth-bound terrain to underwater (read: “alien”) terrain? These in mind, Tesla is far more than a car plant.

Tesla Motors could be, quite literally, a Mars rover plant.