Apparently:

"Tesla said it had achieved overall corporate profitability in July with about $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million."

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN20238220

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Whether or not Tesla is profitable depends on how you define profitable. If you look at their cost of production and sales for model year 2009 in isolation, it's possible that they're making some profit in FY2009.

However if, as any good business owner should, you look at their overall capital costs from day one to now, they're nowhere near profitable and never will be. Given their meager output, how many years will it take them to recover hundreds of millions of dollars spent to date?

Think of it this way: If you were a venture capitalist who had sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into Tesla and they were bragging that they turned a million dollar profit this year, would you be pleased on your return on investment? Yeah, me neither.

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^^..what you said makes no sense.they are a new company, so of course they aren't going to make up all of their costs in one year. Over time if the company is successful, they will easily make up any development costs..and then some more for the investors.

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Axlewood,

I didn't say the Tesla investors should expect to return their investment in one year. But what if they don't see any return in 5 years? 10 years? EVER? Remember, Tesla only started pumping out cars in reasonable volume in the last year or so, but they were founded in 2003. Think of how much money that capital could have been earning elsewhere -- that's a lot of opportunity cost.

Unless you think Tesla is someday going to sell cars in volume like Toyota or Ford (I don't), it could take a very, very, very long time for the investors to see and real ROI, if ever. Tesla's technology dictates cars that their are gonig to be very expensive so they will be relegated to niche markets for years while the Toyotas and Fords of the world own the mainstream, even with green vehicles.

Do you honestly believe the Tesla S will only cost $57K with all that they've promised? Remember, the Tesla Roadtser was orginally promised fro $92,000, but the final price shot up to $109,000. Even if the Tes;a S comes in around $65K, it will face very stiff competition -- not too mnay people will jump out of their trusty BMWs, Audis, Mercedes and Lexus' to take a chance on the Tesla S -- it will be a very low volume car.

So, how are the investors going to see their hundreds of millions of dollars? They won't.

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Steven,

that's the risk of doing business. Not all ventures will make profit, some fail, some succeed.

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Fisker? They haven't even produced a single car yet! Talk about believing hype....

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Fisker is part owned by Quantum Technologies - so if you want to invest in Fisker, buy QTWW.

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Just threw down for some shares of QTWW myself. Seems pretty undervalued right now and Fisker should be doing some good R&D with all that loan money they received. With QTWW at $1.20 a share and less than 100m shares out, it seems like it's worth the risk.

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Exact same thoughts running through my head, seems like a high risk investment.

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Took the words right out of my mouth.

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I think you'd be happy not to invest in it. With all the internal turmoil reported on Autoblog about the company, why would you? Plus, as a previous poster mentioned, they are $1million dollars profitable on a $20 million revenue. That's 5% profit margin, that means they are a commodity, they don't even have a brand. And if you are a student of Graham/Buffet, you don't invest in a commodity.

Plus, as a car fan, have you ever seen the interior of this car? I've seen better on kit cars. For $100+k I want something much better.

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