You're highlighting the absurdity of claiming the $100k loss per vehicle - except for Tesla, the auto industry is one of the few that amortizes all of their R&D for a new model into the COGS. So if Ford spends $1 billion on R&D and $1 billion on advertising for a new model they expect to sell for 10 years, they'll claim $200M/year in expense - so if they only sell 1 car with an actual materials cost of $25k - in their financials, that car will "cost" $200,025,000.