This article comes from the WeChat public account: Yuanchuan Technology Review (ID: kechuangych) < span class = "text-remarks">, author: Luo Jing Yi, from the title figure: vision China
Recently, Tesla has had two lawsuits.
Tesla took the initiative to sue the county government because of the unsatisfactory resumption of factory work in the United States. Musk even threatened to move. The first was a collective complaint by Chinese car owners. The reason may be related to Model 3. Frequent price reductions.
Musk can understand that the Chinese factory resumed work early, and saw that 4,000 weekly productions ran away in the middle of the year, but the US base camp was blocked on the left and right; Chinese car owners can understand it, after all, Model 3 has been in the past In the two domestic price adjustments, the domestic standard version was more than 100,000 lower than the original imported version.
In the information surrounding Tesla, some are related to capacity expansion, some are related to price strategies, plus the recent large-scale plan of 4,000 overfillings released by Tesla recently. The three magic weapons that hit the US market have gathered together again.
We are going to review the previous battle today.
1. How did Tesla climb out of capacity hell?
Before Model 3 was launched, Tesla had already gained popularity with Model S / X. The Model 3 released in 2014 is positioned as a affordable model for the mass market, and plans to rush sales at a price of 35,000 US dollars, when Tesla placed high hopes on a “return” weapon.
As a result, Tesla overestimated its production capacity and underestimated market enthusiasm. The strong market demand has caused Tesla to fall into Capability Hell . In 2017, when Model 3 began mass production, Tesla delivered less than 2,000 vehicles in the third and fourth quarters, which is worse than the original weekly production capacity of 5,000 vehicles.
This situation led to the unprecedented huge cost in the previous period, depreciated cash flow, affected financial performance, and undermined investor confidence. It just happened to catch up with the Model X security incident at the time, further hitting Tesla’s stock price. In March 2018, Tesla’s record monthly plunge of 22.42%.
On April Fool ’s Day, Musk even tweeted to reveal bitterness— “Tesla is bankrupt! Despite all efforts to raise funds and even sell Easter eggs, we are still very sad to inform you of Tes Pull is completely bankrupt. “
Photo of Musk Twitter, with text: Musk fainted next to a Tesla Model 3. He is surrounded by wine bottles, and there are tears on his face that are dried by the wind
I ridiculed and ridiculed. In a later conference call in the first quarter of 2018, Musk politely pointed out the two root causes of the Model 3 capacity hell: batteries and automated production lines.
At first, the problem was on the battery. When the Model 3 was just mass produced in the third quarter of 2017, it took 7 hours for the battery super factory Giga 1 to produce a battery pack, which was seriously delayed
After escaping from production capacity hell and supply volume, Model 3 sales rose sharply. In the third quarter of 2018, Tesla ushered in a historic moment of profitability. The delivery of 56065 Model 3 brought Tesla $ 3 billion in sales revenue, accounting for nearly half of Tesla ’s total revenue for the quarter. On the day of the quarterly report, Tesla’s stock price rose rapidly by 12.72%.
This scene finally relieved Musk, “I think we finally became a real car company .”
2. The price war of cutting-edge technology shopping
When Tesla is in the hell of production capacity, it can only be produced by the “high-end” Model 3 long-endurance version first.
This initiative has caused many car owners to follow the production hell at the same time is the delivery crisis . In June 2018, a wave of unsubscription broke out in Model 3, and about 23% of consumers chose to unsubscribe.
Taking the way of hitting the market with a single product can not go on, both to get rid of difficulties and to appease consumers, Tesla began “ Explosion models .
Four months after the unsubscribe wave, Tesla took out a “medium endurance” model priced at $ 45,000 and promised to deliver it within six to ten weeks. This price has moved many customers of the original standard version.
Moreover, early purchase and early discounts, including the US federal new energy tax credit concessions and other local government subsidies, the mid-life model 3 to hand price is lower than the standard price of 35,000 ideal price.
Mas50kW. At the same time, in March 2019, the V3 super charging pile was also launched for the Model 3, with a maximum power of 250kW. The Model 3 model can be charged for about 250 kilometers of battery life in 15 minutes. It is quite enough for daily travel.
Updated charging piles can only be counted as minor repairs, and it is Tesla ’s masterpiece to quickly roll out supercharging stations across the United States.
In terms of quantity, the total number of Tesla’s North American overcharge stations has risen quite rapidly. Taking North America as an example, from 260 seats in 2016 to 930 seats today, Tesla’s “piling” in North America achieved a 2.6-fold increase in 4 years.
Global number display of Tesla supercharge stations, blue indicates North America
Nothing is clearer than the comparison chart. In recent years, the red signs representing Tesla’s overcharge stations have become denser. In March 2016, some states did not cover overcharging at all, and by the end of 2019, Tesla had built more than 800 overcharging stations in the United States, and the charging network covered more than 99% of the population in the United States.
The fully-launched super-charging station feeds consumers a “heart-pill” and reduces battery anxiety .
Tesla North America Charging StationLayout map (gray indicates planned construction, red indicates completion)
Not only is the number stable, but Tesla is also very particular about where to place the charging station.
Because of Tesla ’s excellent battery technology and endurance, there is no need to build a large number of charging stations over short and medium distances. Tesla ’s layout has always been “Expansion along the highway” .
On a small scale, Tesla has a smaller number of charging piles than other types. For example, in the San Francisco map below, there are only a few Tesla charging piles on the left, and there is no overcharging station; while there are 142 other charging piles on the right, which is 10 times the total number of Teslas.
To enlarge the perspective to the entire US, Tesla has a significant advantage. In the map of the western United States below, Tesla’s supercharge stations are distributed evenly and horizontally , and are distributed along important inter-city roads, even the self-driving tour network red route-Highway 101 There are also many places near such secondary roads.
Combined with the map of the early charging station, it can be seen that the idea of Tesla ’s supercharge station “gradual expansion along the highway” is precisely to meet the need for long-distance travel Need, so that owners of Tesla will not encounter the dilemma of “power outage and fuel shortage” on the road when driving across regions. And for owners of other brands of electric cars