Linear ramps aren't how this works. As with the tent (which is presumably pumping out 1000/week), it's not as simple as "just get better."
Ultimately, the machines are built to operate at a certain rate, and so they'll need to buy more machines.
According to their Q1 letter, they're still planning for just under 3B in CapEx for 2018. On the call, CFO said that the overwhelming majority of that spend was for the Model 3.
Some reports suggest that Tesla has been experimenting with how to make the machines go faster, operating them outside of their specifications.
Another smart move by Tesla was moving to 24/7 production; if machines are the bottleneck, this lets them have the machines always on (rather than buying another line to support 20/5 production).
The 6000/week seems very doable in the short-term by replacing manual tasks with machinery on GA3 or GA4.
But to hit 10k/week, I think they're going to need a GA5. It's hard to see how they hit 10k/week without that.
Two problems with this model:
- 24/7 production is more costly, especially if the reports of 12-hour shifts and having engineers, finance, HR folks working on the lines and doing manual labor. The factory workers are getting beefy overtime compensation, and the talent will get burnt out.
- It's harder to sustain production when you're constantly installing new machinery and new lines. The fact that they are trying to get more cars out of existing lines is worrying: if the lines are already profitable, wouldn't it be smarter to go get cheap debt financing to install more lines?
