The parent commenter was discussing revenue and not profit. If they were aggressively expanding, I would expect that profits to remain small or negative, but I'd expect revenue to grow as a result.
Just to make it more clear what bqe is saying: they are selling the ~same amount of cars as 2 years ago. Both in terms of $ and in terms of #. Growth is completely flat.
Tesla production will be around 100k+ per quarter until they open a new factory (Berlin, july 2021) or expand current ones.
If they're still production limited the only growth in production numbers for the next 12 monthes will be in their China factory and may be a bit in Fremont (p7 of PDF).
Tesla announced they hope to be close to 500k produced vehicules in 2020 (p10 of PDF) so that makes 157k/quarter for the next two quarters. I don't think they'll reach 500k in 2020.
But of course the thing you have to look at is results from other automakers (hint: ugly).
Referencing your other comment, this claim really starts to fall apart.
* You're cherry-picking 2018Q3. So it's not exactly 2 years, it's actually 1.75 years (2018Q3 - 2020Q2).
* But now you're saying pre-covid too, so now it's actually 1.25 years (2018Q3 - 2019Q4).
That period in question is the time after Tesla finished ramping Model 3 production (using a tent!) at Fremont in 2018Q3, and before they finished building the factory in Shanghai in 2020Q1.
So... doesn't it seem reasonable that production gains would be a bit "lumpy"? They go up every time a new factory is finished, and they stay flat until the next one.
Yea, if they are adding product lines without an increase in revenue that seems (possibly) concerning, though obviously the current economic situation makes it hard to know how to value year over year comparisons.