Tesla's appetite for cash keeps growing and growing

Tesla is hungry for cash - and it's no surprise why.

The electric car maker announced last week it plans to raise $1.8 billion through the sale of high-yield bonds. The move is the second injection of cash Tesla has sought this year. In March, it announced it was raising $1.15 billion in a convertible debt offering.

The reason Tesla's seeking all that cash? It's preparing to ramp up production of its new Model 3, its first mass production car. If all goes according to plan, the company will be producing 500,000 vehicles a year by the end of 2018.

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But that's not all. The company is also finalizing locations for at least three more Gigafactories, which will produce batteries for its cars, and plans to open additional Supercharger stations and retail locations.

All that adds up. As we can see in this chart from Statista, Tesla plans to spend $3.50 billion during 2017 - a huge ramp up from last year's $1.28 billion.

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

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