Tesla (TSLA) increases borrowing capacity by $500 million to fund its lease program

After market close today, Tesla announced that it changed its warehouse loan agreement with Deutsche Bank to increase the amount by ~$500 million.

Tesla originally announced another update to the warehouse agreement in December 2016 between ‘Tesla Finance’, Tesla’s financial unit under which the automaker operates its leasing program, and Deutsche Bank.

Now they are increasing the amount available to $1.1 billion, according to a new SEC filing:

“The Amendments increased the shared aggregate lender commitments across the Warehouse Agreements from $600 million to $1.1 billion and added additional lenders, among other things. As a result, the commitments under the A&R 2016 Warehouse Agreement and the 2017 Warehouse Agreement were $511,125,806 and $588,874,194, respectively, as of October 18, 2017. “

Tesla says that the added borrowing capacity will be used to fund more of its own leases, which have become an increasingly important part of its sales.

The move comes as Tesla’s cash position was at an almost record $3 billion at the end of last quarter, but its quarterly capital expenditure has been increasing. Tesla has been investing heavily in expanding its manufacturing capacity in order to ramp up Model 3 production.

The company is expected to spend a record $2 billion in capital expenditure during the second half of the year. Most of the money is expected to go into expansions at the Fremont factory in California and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, while Tesla’s energy division is also working on the solar factory, Gigafactory 2, in Buffalo.

All the investment going into Model 3 hasn’t paid off yet since the company only delivered a few hundred cars last quarter.

Analysts expect Tesla’s financial position to improve with Model 3 production. Tesla guides that it will reach 5,000 units per week by the end of the year. At this rate, the Model 3 program would bring over $200 million in revenue per week.