It's not a gimmick.
It's literally how
everyone does accounting
If you have taken money for a thing, and not yet delivered the thing, then it's not recognized on the books as revenue. It's a liability.
You have to deliver the thing to recognize the revenue.
Not at all. See above- this is how accounting works for everyone not just Tesla.
You appear to have answered your own question in the post below where you find the CFO himself noting this.
Tesla still has well north of 1 billion dollars in deferred revenue on their books as a liability and it'll remain there until they deliver what they took the money as payment for.
I would expect SOME of that revenue to move to recognized upon a wide (not limited beta) release of city streets- specifically the revenue from the post March 2019 buyers.
They'd still have to keep as a liability the deferred revenue for the pre march 19 buyers since they owe them significantly more.
Specifically from the Q2 2021 balance sheet- (new one will be available next week for Q3 update)
View attachment 721482