I was under the impression that the roadster was more about developing and perfecting the tech rather than immediately scaling up production. As redwood noted, the sedan is leading into the mass production phase.

> Because mass production generally leads to decreased costs, which has the potential for profit from initial loss on sales.

Reread the original "As far as I can tell, they sold each one for a loss and even then weren't able to produce enough to meet demand." That assumes that they could have made and sold more but choose not to.

Maybe that would have led to lower price and profit, but if it wasn't going to, selling more is a bad idea.

In this case I think we need to view the sedan as the natural realization of that mass production (or next step)