The cars are not produced at a loss. Each car is profit. The negative cash flow is created by investing heavily in factory expansion like the model 3/Y production line and the record time construction of gigafactory 3.
The cars are not produced at a loss. Each car is profit.
Only under magical unicorn fantasy accounting. Under the same accounting standards every other car maker uses (GAAP), Tesla still loses money on each car.
From Tesla's own financial report:
"excluding regulatory credit revenue, automotive gross margin improved by ~200bp (compared to a decrease of 125bp on a GAAP basis). [emphasis added]
2) Breaking out GAAP and non-GAAP figures is totally standard and commonplace among publicly traded companies. Take a look at Ford's Q2 letter, for example, which has a whole page describing why they use Non-GAAP financial measures to supplement GAAP figures [https://s22.q4cdn.com/857684434/files/doc_financials/2019/q2...]
More about profit margins in second quarter report. It seems it is currently 19% per car. https://ir.tesla.com/static-files/1e70a30c-20a7-48b3-a1f6-69...