You can't compare Tesla profit with other car manufacturers. The numbers are not calculated the same way. If you take your Volkswagen to have something fixed within the warranty period, then the cost of repair is taken from the warranty repair pool associated with that model/year configuration, lowering the profit per sold car.
If you take a Tesla in for repair, they'll most of the time do a goodwill repair which doesn't come out of the warranty pool, and therefore doesn't affect profit per car.
They work out to the same number in the end, but per car profitability looks better for Tesla when trying to attract suck... outside investment.
If Tesla presented its numbers the same way that Toyota and Ford did, they would both have higher profits-per-car than Tesla despite selling many cheaper cars, due to the huge markups on their real moneymakers: trucks sold to U.S. customers (Ford's profit on an F350, their most expensive vehicle, can exceed the retail price of a Model 3.). The profits on trucks are why Musk is trying to get into the truck game with the Cybertruck.
> If Tesla presented its numbers the same way that Toyota and Ford did, they would both have higher profits-per-car than Tesla despite selling many cheaper cars
No they would not, and this is a ridiculous thing to say if you had taken even 5 minutes to look at the earning reports of these companies.
Even when accounting for the small differences between car manufacturers on how they make their per-car-profit calculation, they still report their total earnings the same way.
2022 Tesla made $13B selling 1,3 million cars.
2022 Toyota made $18B selling 10,5 million cars.
2022 Ford lost $2B selling 4.2 million cars.
2021 Ford made $17.9B selling 3.9 million cars. (added Ford's 2021 result for a better comparative)
Every car manufacturer does some slight variation on how they get their margins per car figure, but it does not account for major difference you think they do.
not just the profit on trucks, they're the overall number 1 selling vehicle in the US, and are popular elsewhere. desert warlords love their tacoma/hilux...
If you take a Tesla in for repair, they'll most of the time do a goodwill repair which doesn't come out of the warranty pool, and therefore doesn't affect profit per car.
They work out to the same number in the end, but per car profitability looks better for Tesla when trying to attract suck... outside investment.