1. I am pretty sure they can count the strands exactly. What happens is that material akin to a tar pitch is extruded through tiny die holes, each hole generati

1. I am pretty sure they can count the strands exactly. What happens is that material akin to a tar pitch is extruded through tiny die holes, each hole generating one strand... if there are 500 holes, then 500 strands at a time are produced. 2. Re comparison to competition: I have visited a carbon fibre production plant in France. They use a different process, and do not extrude the fibres on site. Instead they buy polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers - these are used in their own right to make "acrylic" cloth, but there they are the raw material. They convert that into carbon fibre with I think tens of thousands of strands at a time. So, 500 strand production line seems to be sub-commercial.