No, you’re wrong here. Tldr, its way more expensive to have an unsold vehicle on the lot floor.

So, I understand it’s not an independent dealership, but it’s a dealership. So, let’s assume there is a $50k Tesla on the floor of the dealership, given Tesla’s slim margins, it probably cost Tesla somewhere around $45k to manufacture. As with most businesses like this, a significant portion of the vehicle manufacturing costs is done using credit, and settled once the vehicle is sold. So let’s assume it’s 50% and $22k is from a loan (it’s higher, but I don’t know what that number is). They pay interest on that loan until they have made enough money from the sale of the vehicle. They pay insurance every month on the vehicle, while it stands there gathering dust. They pay staff, to operate the dealership, with no sales. It’s a crisis!

Now, assume someone burns the car. Your insurance pays out for the car, the building repairs, and any (made up) operating losses from not being able to trade. Tesla makes money back, settles the loan, no more interest. Cash liquidity looks better and you can pay staff and operating costs at the dealership. Tesla also gets to tell investors that they “shipped” another Tesla.

Now, you may be thinking, but what about the insurance premiums. Yes, you burned a few cars. Of the thousands that are insured by Tesla. Insurance premiums may go up a dollar or so per car, but this is the power of underwriting risk, is that any single incident which may leave you shit out of luck, actually becomes really manageable by comparison.

Unless the cars aren’t insured, in which case it’s a crisis.

Also, if the vehicle is discounted to significantly below cost and sold, they stop the cash bleed, but there is a loss, and we can call it community service for being Nazis.

Don’t burn dealership (or sales outlets or whatever the fuck they call themselves), don’t burn their cars!