An excellent explanation how Tesla's business system works:
Value Layman
@Drewworm “Someone please explain to me how selling cars at a loss makes sense when you are making up for it with volume?”
"It is high risk, but possible and requires 4 key assumptions: 1) Volumes will continue to increase substantially. 2) Investors will continue to fund you as a result of growth. 3) Vendors will continue to supply parts, preferrably with 90-day payment terms, and 4) True margins will eventually be positive.
Think about one hypothetical car sold at a loss the same day it was built, and let’s say the parts for that car were purchased, acquired and used for that car the same day. If you include all the costs of the car you would think they had lost money, but there’s actually more money in the bank account....because they don’t have to pay the vendors for those parts for another 90 days.
So, then, how do you cover the costs to the vendors? Well, in this hypothetical, if you sell two cars the next day, the extra money in the bank will cover the costs for the day before. This allows you to continually lose money on every car without ever actually taking a loss in the bank account.
This is obviously untenable because once max production capacity has been reached you’ll have to realize all those losses in reality. So what next? Now, the increase in volumes has proven to investors not only demand, but the distinct possibility for much higher demand going forward. So the investors provide financing for increased production capacity.
This can continue indefinitely until maximum demand/volume has been reached (or volume increase has slowed sufficiently). At this point it is make or break: you’ve parlayed yourself very quickly to extreme volumes...now it’s time for margins. Can you now sell the vehicles for a profit? If the answer is yes, the company is a massive success. If the answer is no, then most likely bankruptcy."