I think taxpayer subsidies make it easier for management to justify losing $4,000 per car.

In the following article:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/tesla-motors-fre...

Fred Turner, said "It is not quite self-delusion, but there is a habit of thinking of oneself as a free-standing, independent agent, and of not acknowledging the subsidies that one received. And this goes on all the time in the Valley."