[_pmf_]

> It's just crazy to see them beat the competition so badly.

They have not made a single dollar of profit. Yes, it's an incredibly successful and impressive technology demonstration, but production at the scale that is now required is completely different from the development stage.

One example: regular manufacturers are only able to keep their high production numbers because they are able to compensate for hiccups in the supply chain for one model by having evolved to be able to switch a factory to another model in a very short timeframe. A monoculture like Tesla (only model 3 in significant numbers) prevents this.

[illumin8]

Correction: every car they sell is profitable, but they've chosen to reinvest those profits to increase future manufacturing capacity.