Any chance there might be a sandbox mode, where you can start with unlimited money or maybe specify the starting amount of money? I think it would be especially nice to be able to build fully outfitted factories just to learn everything without having to wait to make money.
More importantly, to also have the ability to start off with all research completed.
Then it would be easier to test out factory designs without having to invest money and time in research.
So it’s more like a creative mode.
Just play the game for a few hours. It’s in a very early stage still and is actually really easy to make money. My main game has over 100mil and I literally cannot spend the money as fast as I am making it. My plant efficiency is still horrible too. Good luck! 
Never said it was hard to make money, just another game mode to test things out with.
Especially when you are working on a smaller map, you don’t want to remove your existing line to try a different layout as this will stop your flow of income or will screw up the line completely.
And yes it’s early in development, meaning there is a very high chance more and more features will be added into the game. Making it even more important to have some sort of creative mode to try different things.
Or even better, have some sort of simulation mode, where you can simulate input into a section of the production line. In order to see what is needed to optimize a certain section. Like in the simulation mode you give the painter an input of 1 car every 4.3 seconds and you can simulate how many painters and dryers it will take to not have the system glog up. I know you can just calculate it yourself right now, but still, would be a cool feature to have, especially when you also want to manufacture all the parts for the section too. Calculations can turn rather complicated fast.
I would assume a “freeplay” mode will be added but I was thinking of creating a script that converts whatever savefile you want into a “freeplay” / “sandbox” mode with everything unlocked plus more funds until the feature is added. Unfortunately I literally just wake up one day and decide to code and that day doesn’t come around often (Once I start I don’t usually start and other things fall behind) so the feature will probably get added to the game before I even make a converting script. 
EDIT: Damn you. Now I’m making it. No time line.
A quick hack of any saved game will certainly let you adjust the money you have - i’ve done it - and probably advance the research tree, additionally. The save game I modified, I just gave myself about 99 million and then set the research off in-game bit by bit, using around 16 research rooms to make it quicker, then destroying them later. I assume this can probably be bypassed but I didn’t think about it at the time as I was testing.
Cliff made the game to specifically encourage modding, so the save file is deliberately easy to edit with any text editor.
You can just copy the research data to the research tags in the xml save manually to unlock all research right away.
Actually, it was crazy simple to hack together a save game with a shedload of cash and everything researched so i’m going to post it into a new thread, along with a brief explanation of what I did.
Got a reply between my two messages stating exactly what I actually did. That was quick, lol. I’ll post the save elsewhere anyway, for those who aren’t so comfortable manually hacking xml files.
Ya I was trying to make a converter for any save file but I’m stuck so uploading that save will be the easiest solution.