That's an ML problem. Building out a factory to produce 100K cars is expensive: ask Tesla how much they've spent to hit their production goals, how many engin

That's an ML problem. Building out a factory to produce 100K cars is expensive: ask Tesla how much they've spent to hit their production goals, how many engineer/tech-years, and how much in supply chain effort it is. You just don't build that many prototypes, period, even if you're a trillion dollar company. You only build that many if they're saleable as real products so you can get market feedback that yes you're going down the right path. 82,000 doesn't sound like much, but for a prototype build with yield rates that are undoubtedly shitty, non-final hardware, and required automotive-spec that is completely nuts. There's a reason why it's dropped to 600 so far and it's because they haven't finalized the hardware and they realize they aren't ready for mass production yet. Honestly, even 600 prototypes sounds like a lot to me for something as complicated and expensive as a car, but I don't work in that field so I can't say what normal is. It's about right for beyond-the-prototype-and-trying-to-get-to-a-manufacturable-product in consumer or industrial hardware, depending on the target market size.