[bb822]

You're right, the goal isn't to be profitable next year, it was to be profitable this year. Actually, Elon said "I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward," not even a year ago. So much for that. Also, Tesla isn't a startup--they've been in business for more than 15 years.

Tesla's annual depreciation outpaces their capital spending, so they aren't even spending enough to maintain their current assets. Last year they missed their planned CapEx by something like $1 billion. Also not something a "growth" company does.

That's because they are (and have been) in a precarious financial condition for almost their entire history, only made worse by the recent acquisition of an insolvent solar company in order to bailout you and your family members financial stakes.

[beat]

Growth companies are always in a precarious financial position. That is their nature. Default dead, as pg put it. The goal is to achieve market scale, then make that financial position stable and profitable, rather than precarious and feeding on investment.

[isthispermanent]

And if you were to successfully achieve, or begin to achieve, market scale your revenue/income statement would look a lot like this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla%2C_Inc.#/media/File:Tesl...

It took Amazon about 12 years to get to the same revenue/income balance... http://infographic.statista.com/normal/chartoftheday_4298_am...

[bb822]

Sure maybe it would look like that if Tesla were in fact Amazon. But Tesla makes cars, they don't sell tablecloths and rent servers.

There is very high operating leverage in Automotive manufacturing. Hence why this cycle continues forever:

Elon: That's it, we don't need to raise anymore outside capital! 9 months later: Insert equity/bond/convert raise here.