Detroit traditional auto brands continue to dominate the competition, controlling nearly 92% of the pickup truck market.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Tencent Technology .
November 25, according to foreign media reports, as early as a year before Tesla was preparing to launch its first pickup truck model, its CEO Elon Musk was responsible for this car. Demand sets relatively low standards. Digging deeper into the dynamics of the US pickup truck market, which is highly competitive and difficult for new entrants to find, it is easy to see why.
Japanese automakers have spent two decades and billions of dollars trying to enter the lucrative pickup truck market. But data from market research agency IHS Markit show that 20 years after Toyota first started producing Tundra pickups, Detroit traditional car brands continue to dominate the competition, controlling nearly 92% of the pickup truck market. Researchers say that customers with Ram pickups are more loyal to their owners than any other model in the United States, and people have similar loyalty to Ford or GM’s Chevrolet pickup brand.
Musk started entering this market late Thursday, local time. With CyberTruck’s debut, this is arguably the hardest mountain Tesla is trying to climb. Musk warned last November that he wasn’t sure if many people would buy this pickup, because the design would not be suitable for everyone. These statements contrast sharply with the billionaire’s bold predictions on how many Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers his company will sell in the next few years.
IHS Markit analyst Stephanie Brinley said on the phone: “Electric pickups need to meet the current needs and capabilities of pickup trucks and provide more services. Traditional pickup buyers may consider Electric pickup trucks, but they will not easily give up the features and capabilities of traditional pickup trucks.
In fact, before Musk unveiled the mystery of Tesla’s electric pickup trucks, Detroit’s automakers began to attack it. 13 months ago, the Tesla boss tweeted that his pickup would have a towing capacity of 300,000 pounds (136 tons)force. Recently, Ford released a video showing its F-150 electric pickup truck dragging a 1-million-pound (454-ton) double-decker railroad car.
GM CEO Mary Barra also told investors at an event in New York that the company’s first electric pickup will debut in the showroom in late 2021 and will occupy the competition A place. “GM knows truck buyers,” she said. Other GM executives also believe that Tesla’s pickup trucks will not be on the same level as their electric trucks.
Phil Brook, GM ’s vice president of brand marketing, said in an interview: “I suspect there may be similarities in price, but I think there may be differences in size and capabilities. Buy us Pickup truck people, they are very proud, they will drive the truck anywhere, they will deliberately soil the car, then clean it, and finally go to a five-star restaurant for dinner. So, they are not the only ones driving People who move around and just want to show off. “
Musk said in an interview with a Tesla enthusiast podcast earlier this year that he wanted Tesla pickups to start at less than $ 50,000. Not all of his comments on this car have lowered expectations: During an October earnings call, he declared that it would be the company’s “best product ever.” Tesla’s stock price has been rising since the release of that quarterly report, and its stock price has surged 42% due to optimism that the company can generate profits on a more sustainable basis.
But it is unclear how long the new electric pickup trucks will contribute to these efforts. The Model Y crossover is planned to be launched next summer, and Tesla also plans to limit production of the electric truck Semi next year. Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi expects Tesla to begin building pickups by the end of 2020 or early 2021.
Tesla may not dominate the electric pickup market for a long time. Amazon-backed electric car startup Rivian plans to launch R1T pickups later next year. Ford has vowed to begin selling F-150 hybrid and battery pickups from 2020, and GM has promised to close a plant in the Detroit area and prepare to produce plug-in pickups.
Credit Suisse analyst Dan Levy said that if electric pickups were to be on par with internal combustion engine-driven pickups, battery prices would have to drop significantly. Levy wrote in a report this week: “Given the constraints of electrification costs and customer preferences, we expect the large pickup market to be one of the last areas to transition to electrification.” He believes that by 2025 Tesla will sell about 50,000 pickupsIn comparison, Model 3 and Model Y sales were about 300,000 and 400,000, respectively.
An obstacle that cannot be ignored is the difficulties that Tesla may encounter in the “Truck State” of the United States. IHS data shows that Texas, which prohibits manufacturers from selling cars directly to consumers, is also the state with the largest number of large pickups registered in the United States. As of September this year, Texas had 14% of the trucks registered in the country, more than double the number of Michigan runner-ups who also implemented the ban.
Tesla’s launch event on Thursday night ended the “Media Day” at the Los Angeles Auto Show. At that time, the debut of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E electric SUV also caused a sensation. But seeking his own attention is not the only motivation for Musk to show Tesla pickups near the auto show. When announcing the date and place, he joked on Twitter that they were “surprisingly familiar” and shared links to the opening titles and scenes of the 1982 film “Blade Runner” (set November 2019). He mentioned the film before, saying it inspired the future design of pickups.
Deutschman Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner said: “Musk believes that CyberTruck ‘looks like the armored personnel carrier from the future,’ from Blade Runner, It ’s very different from the trucks of the past 20-40 years. We believe that this may pose a risk of not attracting traditional pickup buyers, making it a niche product. ”He also said that investors will want to learn more about production Timing, increased capital expenditure requirements and information on where Tesla will make pickups. (Tencent Technology Review / Golden Deer)