[11thEarlOfMar]

"they have to be evaluated as a car company"

Take a look at the rate of growth in capacity both of their cars and their batteries. I don't know what it is, but with Shanghai Giga coming online this year, Model Y next year, Pickup + Semi thereafter, the growth in capacity and the capital requirements to install it, is not matched by any other car company, possibly in the history of car companies (Musk's posit, to be fact checked).

All that growth is very expensive, but they may be able to fund it from operations. That is 'super impressive'.

In terms of production volumes, they are still small relative to GM, Toyota, VW, I'd still put them in the startup category. But not for much longer.

[Animats]

Building production plants is folded into GAAP numbers. Those are real assets with real depreciation.

Actual production at Tesla's battery "gigafactory" is only around 23GWh/yr.[1] That puts them well behind BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology. About five other companies have battery factories in the 10-100GWh/yr range under construction or operating.

[1] https://electrek.co/2019/04/14/tesla-gigafactory-1-battery-c...

[rcMgD2BwE72F]

>Actual production at Tesla's battery "gigafactory" is only around 23GWh/yr.

It has already increased to 28 GWh per the latest earning call, and it is still growing. Panasonic said they already installed the equipment for 35 GWh of production and will invest further as soon as they're able to reach that rate.