> "they are very profitable producing at current rates"

You don't know that. They had one big, profitable, immaculate quarter in Q3 by pulling all demand forward and using every accounting trick in the book to show profit. There is no guarantee there will be another quarter like that. In fact, if Tesla's earnings history shows anything, it's that losses will be even bigger than before.

q3 was also helped by the fact that, despite increasing the total amount of tesla's sold by ~66%, they opened only 1.1% new service centers and only 3.2% new superchargers. The tesla experience is going to be incredibly degraded as time goes by.

Bingo! Q3 and Q4 numbers should absolutely be taken with a grain of salt. It was a confluence of all positive points. a) Accounting b) Pent up demand for larger priced vehicles c) Peak Economy

Going forward, a) Weakened Global Economy b) Everyone who is passionate about owning Tesla has bought one.

Sustainable demand and profit will be clearer in 2019 Q2 and forward.

I can make a public bet that it wouldn't be greater than $150 Million per quarter