[timdorr]

If they can build the 5000 cars they claimed for this year (honestly, its doubtful) then they have ~$75k (rough guess on avg car price) * 5000 = ~$375m coming their way this year. And they have a huge backlog of orders (~13.8k), so it's really just a question of if they can scale up their production fast enough to close the gap. It'll happen, possibly without any bridge financing.

[vm]

Revenues are not cash flows. That $375M of revenues from car orders has real costs associated (i.e. materials, labor).

Ford and GM, established car makers, have gross margins of about 12-15%. Tesla's margins are much lower, at least today. But let's ignore working capital needs and pretend Tesla had the "great" margins of its competitors, then that's still only $50M of cash contribution. Tesla will need lots of cash this year.