Any time I inform true believers that an auto maker (other than Tesla) sells electric vehicles it's just a scam to allow them to sell more gas guzzlers.
This is purely your opinion that it is a "scam", that's why people get mad. Nobody likes a know it all who represents their opinion as fact.
There are a variety of factors why traditional automakers have not achieved the manufacturing efficiency that Tesla has. The efficiency of scale in production not being there, is one. The traditional automakers have very low production rates compared to gas vehicle production, and they will never make money producing anything at low scale production rates.
Traditional automakers are also really bad at producing batteries, at least so far. Tesla has put a lot of R&D into battery manufacturing as well as the accompanying vehicle software. How much are traditional manufacturers losing on that front? How is that Ultium battery production ramp-up going? Not very well, I hear.
There was also always going to be a lot of investment cost for traditional manufacturers in starting up EV manufacturing in the first place. How many years did Tesla lose money before they went profitable? Without searching the web I'd guess at least 7-9 years.
One might argue that since Tesla has gone away from the Toyota manufacturing methodology that most of the rest of the industry uses, that they are producing a lesser quality product at a lower cost. I don't care to read accouting reports to put an actual dollar figure on that, but I'm sure there is one.
Speaking of accounting, there is another question. Do the traditional manufacturers assign the cost of developing EV manufacturing, battery development, software develpment, and so forth, on per-unit basis (which it seems like) or a sunk R&D cost... It makes a difference.
You should read about the history of Boeing vs McDonald Douglas, Boeing did not amortize development costs on a per-unit basis but McD did, thereby despite manufacturing over 2000 DC-9 variants including the MD-80s, their accounting records say they never made any money on it.
I don't have much interest in reading the accounting reports of GM, Ford, et.al., but at the end of the day when they say they're losing xyz per unit, my response is always going to be that this statement requires futher qualification.
Is selling flex fuel vehicles that run on E85 also a "scam" because it allows manufacturers to receive credits towards their CAFE average? What about hybrids? I believe those also receive CAFE credits.
But anyway...say whatever you want, I'm sure people absolutely love it. Whatever fits your chosen narrative. Every publicly held traditional manufacturer has quarterly earnings Q&As with investors and so forth, you ought to see if you can get on there and ask the likes of Marry Barra and Jim Farley the really TOUGH questions. I'm sure they'd love it.
