Tesla's capex spending is skyrocketing

Tesla announced on Wednesday that it's selling another $2 billion worth of shares, including $600 million worth held by its founder and CEO, Elon Musk. The company said it would use the new money to ramp up production of its Model 3, which will be priced lower than previous Teslas and is meant for mainstream car buyers. Tesla expects to make 500,000 of the cars in 2018.

As this chart from Statista shows, Tesla's capital expenditures have been on a tear in the last two years, and are expected to grow even more in 2016. Not only does Tesla need to build all these new Model 3s, but it also needs to finish its massive Nevada "gigafactory" where it will build the batteries for all these cars.

NOW WATCH: Virtual reality could help the stock market reach all-time highs in 2016 and 2017