I would remind you that as part of the deal Tesla had access to purchase a substantial amount of extra land as part of their deal when selecting that site. Clearly they had expansion *at some point* in mind when they went there.
Given their timeline of starting GF1 seriously around the June-ish timeframe last year and starting targeting the start of production in early to mid 2016, I would think that they would need to select another site right about the time the first cells are coming out of GF1 in order to target the start of production in 2018. Also keep in mind that Panasonic is increasing their output with additional factories and such which will likely lead to more capacity that way.
Yeah, I'm in basic agreement with your points. Nevada was selected in part because it was quite willing to support Tesla's ambition to build fast. So I see it as an ideal place for speed. Other locations may not be so accomodating. So eventually multiple sited will be developed in parallel.
I have long kept a theory to myself that each GF location would have the land capacity for 150 to 300 GWh. The idea is this: select site, build for a year, add about 15 GWh capacity each year for 10 to 20 years. This is linear growth in one campus. The workforce becomes more efficient over time such that eventually 10k employees can suffice for 300 GWh output. But linear growth will not suffice for Tesla's exponential, actuallylogistic, growth ambition. So it is necessary to accelerate from adding just 15 GWh per year. So start one new campus each year. Thus, you get quadratic growth. Each year you are adding, 15, 30, 45, 60, etc. causing cumulative capacity to grow 15, 45, 90, 120, etc. By 2025 you have say 10 campuses which will ultimate produce 200 GWh per campus, 2000 GWh total, but as of 2025 produce about 500 to 750 GWh. So this is quadratic growth upto 2025, then the growth rate tapers down over the next 20 years, at which point the market is saturated, and technological gains in density are sufficient to meet nominal growth in the saturated maket. So the beauty of this progression is that it breaks down exponential growth into two linear process. Adding one new site per year is linear growth for top management to oversee. Then within each campus there is linear growth which campus management can oversee. Quadratic growth comes close enough to exponential that gaps can be managed by changing the mix of automotive and stationary output and adjustments to the rate of build out. Note that when you have 10 campuses each with room for 15 GWh growth, you can grow total capacity by 0 to 150 GWh for that year as needed to meet demand. Longrun it gives you logistic growth which can be adjusted to avoid overcapacity.
This basic outline is consistent with growing revenue 50% annually until 2025. Additionally to service both transportation and electricity market in say 30 years, Musk suggested may require some 200,000 GWh of batteries. Longrun perhaps 7% will be repreplaced each year, so total manufacturing capacity needs to reach about 14,000 GWh per year. So if Tesla has 2000 GWh capacity, that's a market share of 15%. Tesla could capture more or less market share depending on how competitive the field becomes. Longrun batteries are a commodity, though there will continue to be a lot of technology development that goes with this like microchips or solar panels, but I do think that the early entrants, say before 2025, will enjoy the highest profitability and will gain the experience to shut out other competitors on price and technology. So it is best to lock in 10 or so campuses prior to 2025, when you can get the quickest return on investment. Thereafter, saving yet more cost on further expansion and improving worker productivity will be key to competition until the market is saturated.
