This is a pilot. Doesn’t have to be financially viable on its own. Paves way for future projects and proves utility for the community.
How do they expect to make money as a private enterprise if these are the numbers they propose?
Public transportation is supposed to lose money, not make it, hence the "public" part. It's paid for by tax dollars, because it is impossible for private companies to make money from it.
Even the private rail systems around the world are largely subsidized pubicly during construction, with only operations being privatized.
⇒ what Tesla describes here is not a test track, or at least shouldn’t be.
They aren't proposing these numbers with any more context than the article, (This is a pilot running alongside existing infrastructure) so I'm really unsure about what you are asking?
[1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/for-1-billion...
What? No! Public as in "open to the public". At least in the German equivalent "Öffentlicher Nahverkehr" thats exactly what it says ("öffentlich" = "open to the public").
Systems like the MTR[0] also show that it is indeed possible to have a public transportation system that is directly profitable at scale.
All tranport systems are available for use by the general public.
Also, the MTR infrastructure is government subsidized.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_con...]
These days, the major expense of building a mass transit system is just buying property. And in cities, these properties are going to be already developed.
Right now, there are individual buildings in US cities that cost over $1billion, so grade-separated ground rail is not going to happen for cheap. That only leaves tunneling, which also isn't cheap.