Julian Cox
Banned
As long as they grow 50% per year, there's no point thinking about 'the end'. Profit will only become meaningfull when their growth drops below 20% per year. That probably wont be in the coming 10 years.
Your statement is not correct and I know why. You have confused profits with cash flows and for the cash flows you are assuming Tesla has a need for escalating finished goods inventories to keep pace with escalating sales. None of that is true. You are mentally modelling the traditional auto industry or an ordinary manufacturing business supplying products to customers on credit and waiting to be paid. Tesla does not work that way. Every sale currently delivered from factory to customer within the USA is cash flow positive (cash outlay for bill of materials and is settled after customer funds are received) and every sale with a longer transit time is and always can be financed in transit at minimal interest rates secured on the inventory in transit so that it is cash flow positive too and the interest can be passed on to the remote customer to maintain a flat gross margin on sales.
You are also failing to consider the implications of Autonomous Fleet that has not even a passing resemblance to an ordinary manufacturing and distribution business model. That will be online within probably 5 years and if they price-match Uber they will be enjoying profits well in excess of 100% and they may as well enjoy at least 75% of that pending market saturation.
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