It's more like once you figure out how to make a really good lamp then producing lots of lamps will be profitable. But the lamps are currently suboptimal so we'll be in the red until that time.
You're stuck racing against your competitors with the distinct possibility that your R&D costs will outgrow the market demand, and you can't stop because otherwise your customers will stop investing in your dead end tech and switch.
What is in doubt is whether past performance is an indicator of future results. How long will the ever-increasing R&D expenditure keep paying off?
High risk high reward I guess