What do you think the lead time is for the robots? I would imagine they would add where gaps are most pronounced and tweak the run rate where possible. This may delay getting to 10,000 a week in March, but preserves capital. If the next GF is going to start by next year, it's going to be about margins and capital preservation. At 350,000 cars they are generating 20 billion in revenue and hopefully at least 2-3 billion in free cash flow. Energy storage may also start creating cash flow, but still unknown. Solar seems on track for a lull this year and return to rapid growth in 2018. Hard to estimate free cash flow from solar. With 3 billion in cash flow, they can probably work on two new GF sites concurrently. A billion a year gets the site and enough space to start local cell production pack assembly and a 250,000 model 3 line. Can they build an integrated site in less than two years? Would they start some production facets early and just do local assembly short term? There must be a lot of options to roll out new sites as fast as possible and start generating some cash from operations quickly.
They also plan on doubling the size of Fremont, which is probably another 3 billion. Pretty amazing for a company assembling Lotus cars in a glorified chop shop a decade ago.
