Excuse me?
I admire you a lot on this forum but this comment doesn't make any sense.
Do you take advertisement expenses out of GM profitability because "they don't count on the margin made on a car"?
My statement about "losing money every time they sell a car" is maybe factually incorrect (assuming you mean just on a "product margin" level) and I could acknowledge so
Tesla is still selling for 28 times book value, 6 times sales and is currently losing money
And oh, is taking reservations on models that are not to be available in the foreseeable short term future.
You are possibly correct they do not have a negative product margin on every car they sell (which doesn't mean they don't lose money btw), but it still looks like a terrible terrible investment to me.
As long as we're clear that I object only to the per-vehicle wording, we're on the same page. At that level, they're not just "possibly" profitable, but have been so for years. Casual searching on the Model S shows 17% in 2013, 22% recently, and 30% projected by year-end. The X, a newer, lower-volume, over-engineered monstrosity, runs a few points lower - I see current estimates around 20% and a goal of 25%.
Like I said, I take no issue with your other points, least of all that other costs still add up to net losses, and I didn't claim it was a good investment either.
I do think for anyone invested, or thinking about investing, it's interesting that they are projecting GAAP profitability by Q4. All that capex may be paying off. But as has been pointed out above, so much growth is baked into the share price that the remaining upside is dubious.