Quote:
Originally Posted by roflwaffle
I could see them spending most of their remaining cash, but I don't see it as a negative. Going from building a few thousand cars per year (2012) to building 80k+ cars/year (2016) required ~$4.1 billion in capex from 2013 through 2016.
Since the end of 2016, the Gigafactory went from producing no cells to producing more than the rest of the world combined for EVs, and Tesla went from building 80k+ cars/year (2016) to building 80k+ cars/quarter (18Q4), which required about $5.5 billion in capex from 2017 through 2018.
If the Model Y is popular enough, I could see Tesla increasing battery and vehicle production by another factor of two to four and needing another $5-7+ billion over two to four years to do so. If the Y is only as popular as the 3, then their capex will be likely be much less.
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The problem is that they have promised to make the Model Y, Semi, and Roadster at the same time. They will also need cash to increase their service network to handle repairs on all the new cars they are selling.
Tesla doesn't have enough cash on hand to do everything that Musk has promised and pay off existing debt obligations.