Insight: Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4000 on every vehicle sold

Don’t you wish your mobile device would plug itself in when it needed a charge?

California-based Tesla Motors went public in 2010.

And considering the fact that the Silicon Valley car-maker lost $359 million last quarter for luxury motors during a bull market, CEO Elon Musk revealed his company would be cutting production targets for 2015 and 2016, and might need to sell more stocks amongst other avenues of raising more capital.

During the call, a financial analyst asked if that was something Tesla would consider or “does Tesla just cut out the middle man and sell on-demand electric mobility services directly from the company on its own platform”. Shown doing its thing in this video, the segmented, metal, snake-like cable could potentially be used at Tesla’s supercharger stations or in home garages.

Automakers consume cash to pay for assembly line equipment, including metal dies and plastic molds, as well as testing to meet safety and emissions standards. It’s an incredible step in the right direction for Tesla, but can you see electric cars in 20 years? Meanwhile, the company had only $1.15 billion cash by June 30, even though it had $2.67 billion previous year. A typical new auto can cost $1 billion or more to engineer and bring to market.

On Thursday, Musk revisited the topic after the video was posted, stating, “Tesla Snakebot autocharger prototype”. In addition to adding a lower priced version of the Model S, Tesla last month said it would offer performance upgrades for its Model S 85 and 85D for $5,000 and launched the Model S 90D and P90D high performance cars at a $10,000 price premium.