The company has released its latest financial report, and there we have information about the cost of a Tesla car.

According to Zach Kirkhorn, Tesla's chief financial officer (CFO), "For the fourth quarter in particular, automotive gross margin, excluding credit, increased to 29.2%, which is our highest margin ever. We expect to continue to see higher operating margins as we grow our volumes. On a longer-term horizon, we are quite optimistic about expanding margins. On the hardware side, we are aggressively promoting manufacturing innovation and operational efficiencies to drive down costs."

InsideEVs dug into the year-end report and found this interesting tidbit: cost of goods sold (COGS) per vehicle in the third quarter and again in the fourth quarter was $36,000. COGS includes all costs and expenses directly related to the production of a product. It excludes things like overhead and sales and marketing. Since Tesla doesn't advertise like traditional automakers do, it obviously saves a lot of money in this area as well. Tesla says, "We believe our current designs, including large castings, structural battery packs and more, should help us continue to minimize the cost of our products."

Tesla's cheapest, the Model 3, starts at around $45,000, and the Model Y is listed for nearly $60,000. It's quickly becoming apparent that with a build cost of $36,000 per car, Tesla is one of the most profitable car companies in the world.