OK, $35K, 115,000 pre-orders, delivery early 2018. (Yeah, he said "next year", and then the projection said "late next year", and then he waffled, so 2018 is realistic.)
Tesla's current production rate is about 70,000 units a year. Yes, the NUMMI plant once produced 500K vehicles a year on that site, but that just means Tesla has lots of empty building shell into which they can expand.
The real problem is profitability. Bloomberg is skeptical.[1] Tesla isn't profitable, and they have a high price point now. Cutting the price means they have to produce at a far lower cost while expanding factory capacity. That will be very tough. Jason Wheeler, Tesla's CFO, is going to have to come up with some creative financial strategies. But with near-zero interest rates, and lots of pre-orders, they can probably borrow heavily for plant at very low cost.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-03-31/tesla-double...
Tesla's current production rate is about 70,000 units a year. Yes, the NUMMI plant once produced 500K vehicles a year on that site, but that just means Tesla has lots of empty building shell into which they can expand.
The real problem is profitability. Bloomberg is skeptical.[1] Tesla isn't profitable, and they have a high price point now. Cutting the price means they have to produce at a far lower cost while expanding factory capacity. That will be very tough. Jason Wheeler, Tesla's CFO, is going to have to come up with some creative financial strategies. But with near-zero interest rates, and lots of pre-orders, they can probably borrow heavily for plant at very low cost.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-03-31/tesla-double...