They could probably do full development from scratch for under $10 bil if they were frugal and patient, or more if they want to go fast, and farm first product out to a manufacturing house like magna. This is their MO already (they don't want to own a plant).
In the current era, it's probably cheaper to develop a car then to build out sufficient AI datacenters - which is also a negative ROI segment today for AI companies.
> In the current era, it's probably cheaper to develop a car then to build out sufficient AI datacenters
You're almost certainly right, and this is a good way to show just how remarkably big the AI buildout is.