Auto companies are hugely capital intensive (which is why you don't see many new ones) so I don't see what's insane about it. They are going public to raise funds to hopefully one day make loads of cash. It's a different kind of IPO than something like Google which was simply to make the employees wealthy, but not insane.

tl;dr this is an IPO at its finest--a make it or break it company trying to raise funds on the open market.