Tesla announced today that they are massively incompetent at business. It costs them almost $140k to build a vehicle they sell for $92k, netting them a loss of about $50k per vehicle sold.
GM by comparison now seems to be performing very well, since they only lose a few hundred dollars per vehicle sold. It should also be noted that GM probably uses something closer to true accounting rules, whereas the Tesla estimate is almost certainly based on fantasy. They probably take all of their business and engineering costs and spread them over many thousands of vehicles that they'll never actually sell because they're gonna go bankrupt first.
They attempt to put a happy face on things by suggesting that - out of thin air - they can cut their parts costs by about 50% without impacting the quality of the vehicle. Some would wonder why they wouldn't have already done so, if it is such an easy thing to do. Those towards the end of the production waiting list might reconsider whether they really want to pay full price for such a significantly economized vehicle.
Maybe they were too busy "innovating" (read: taping thousands of tiny batteries into giant bundles and breaking transmissions. that really is the extent of their innovation. they bought the motor, controller, charger wholesale from ac propulsion & the running gear from lotus) that they forgot to hire somebody who could take care of the basic stuff that Detroit has been doing for more than a hundred years.
I'd be willing to make an even odds bet that Tesla never finishes their initial production run of 300 roadsters, if anyone is interested. I'd take either side of the bet.
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