Chinese auto companies are outstanding, and Tesla is going deep into the sea. Article | Mei Xukang and He Mu
Edit | Hao Qiuhui
Source | Yiou Auto
ID：EO-AUTO
Title | Pexels
Every time Tesla is in public, Musk will brag about "China".
At 16:30 on August 4, Central Time, at Tesla's 2022 General Meeting of Shareholders, Musk praised the excellence and dedication of the Chinese team. "The Shanghai Super Factory is hard to surpass. I must admit that the Shanghai team is really excellent."
At the last Tesla's second quarter financial report conference call, Musk also expressed his appreciation and said publicly: "Chinese manufacturers in all walks of life, especially electric vehicle manufacturers, are very smart and hardworking. Anyone who is not as competitive as them will decline. We admire them very much and respect their ability more.
Facts have proved that Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers can afford such praise from Musk.
In recent years, Chinese new energy vehicle enterprises (including electric vehicle manufacturers) have developed rapidly, and have gradually narrowed the gap with Tesla, or even achieved partial surpassing.
Tesla, once at the height of its power, is stepping down from the altar in the Chinese market.
Despite the comprehensive sales of hybrid, pure electric and other models, BYD still won the sales contest of Tesla in the first seven months of 2022.
"Diwang" topped the sales volume of new energy vehicles, which is of great significance to Chinese automobile enterprises: in the global new energy vehicle market, Chinese automobile enterprises achieved overtaking.
At present, the new force queue of China's electric vehicles has changed from "three strong" Weixiaoli to "five tigers" Weixiaoli. More emerging forces have followed, forming the status quo of China's electric vehicle market in which a hundred flowers bloom.
the students surpass the teacher
Tesla has always been a pioneer in the new energy vehicle track. Both its innovative direct marketing mode and the world's leading core technologies of new energy vehicles such as automatic driving and three electric systems have brought Tesla public praise and practical benefits.
At present, Tesla's operating profit margin is the highest in the automotive industry, surpassing BMW, Daimler, Ford and other traditional automobile giants.
According to the financial report data of Tesla in the second quarter of 2022, Tesla achieved an industry-leading operating profit margin of 14.6% in this quarter, with a positive free cash flow of up to 621 million dollars, and has made profits for 12 consecutive quarters, showing a strong and broad prospect for the electric vehicle industry.
However, these are not insurmountable.
In 2013, Tesla opened its first experience store in Fangcaoping, Beijing. In 2021, there will be more than 2200 new energy automobile stores in China. In eight years, the mall has become a new stage for auto enterprise brand competition, and the new and old forces of Chinese auto makers have become familiar with Tesla's direct marketing model.
Based on the understanding of the Chinese market, Chinese automobile enterprises have a wide range of patterns, combining the direct marketing mode with the Chinese market, breaking the traditional service mode of 4S stores, walking out a new path and creating a new service format.
The service ability of Chinese auto enterprises such as Weilai has gradually been recognized by consumers, and has made great progress in building brand image.
As far as the three electricity technology is concerned, the Chinese market has also given birth to car enterprises such as BYD that can develop and produce three electricity systems by themselves.
Now, Chinese enterprises such as Ningde Times and BYD are the core players in the new energy vehicle market, and Chinese motor enterprises can also manufacture drive motors comparable to the advanced level abroad. As for the electric control system, although restricted by upstream core components such as IGBT, suppliers such as BYD and Star semi conductors are gradually realizing technological breakthroughs.
In June this year, Lian Yubo, Executive Vice President of BYD Group and President of Automotive Engineering Research Institute, confirmed that BYD would provide batteries for Tesla in an interview with the media.
Tesla itself is also a power battery player, but it focuses on cylindrical batteries. Tesla's new generation 4680 batteries are about to start mass production, which has raised a heat of large cylindrical batteries this year.
Musk believes that the progress of large-scale mass production of 4680 batteries depends on the speed of supplier's battery production, and will also determine the speed of "the world's transition to sustainable energy".
At Tesla's shareholders' meeting, Musk said frankly that at the end of this year, 4680 batteries will enter the stage of mass production, and sufficient and stable battery supply can support Tesla's production of at least 1.5 million cars this year.
As for automatic driving, the core field of intelligent electric vehicles, Tesla's automatic driving competitiveness ranks first according to the 2022 Top 15 Chinese market intelligent electric vehicle brands' automatic driving competitiveness selected by Yiou Think Tank, but Weixiaoli is closely followed, and emerging automobile brands such as Zero Run, Zhiji, Geekr, Feifan are closely followed.
Chinese automobile enterprises are not making efforts in the single technical field of new energy vehicles, but are making rapid progress in all directions from electrification to intelligence.
Tesla's technological precipitation still exists, but it is no longer unattainable.
Yiou Automobile believes that consumers will vote with their feet as the image of "excellent products" of China's new energy vehicles is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In the future market of new energy vehicles in China and even the world, Chinese automobile enterprises will surely be in the forefront.
Go to the deep sea
Tesla has led the way for a long time and received enough flowers and applause. When the players behind him gradually catch up with him, Tesla also needs to consider the next development path.
Whether it is firm in the research and development of electric vehicles, or the innovation of automatic driving technology and direct marketing mode, Tesla has been going to the deep sea.
At Tesla's 2022 General Meeting of Shareholders, Musk said that Tesla is not only an automobile company, but also a collection of businesses including software, hardware, energy, etc.
Yiou Automobile has learned that the power generated by Tesla's solar business has exceeded the total power consumption of factories, production facilities and global Tesla vehicles. Tesla has sold energy storage products equivalent to 4GWh, accounting for more than 15% of the global market.
In the second quarter of this year, the revenue of Tesla's power generation and energy storage business was $870 million, compared with $620 million in the previous quarter. The market demand of Tesla's energy storage product Powerwall continues to increase, and the factory producing Megapack is climbing its capacity.
In the second quarter, Tesla's installed capacity of solar energy also increased by 25% to 106 MW on a year-on-year basis.
Musk has high hopes for Tesla's energy business, and has said many times that its energy business will catch up with electric vehicle business.
In the final analysis, Tesla wants to dominate all aspects of new energy power generation, storage and use. Establish a complete new energy ecosystem around cars, piles, storage, home furnishings, etc., touch the deeper level of user life, establish a strong user connection, so as to ensure its future development.
In the second quarter financial report meeting, Musk also mentioned that in order to accelerate the transformation of the world to sustainable energy, Tesla chose to accelerate the promotion of electric vehicles, energy storage and photovoltaic, the three pillars of sustainable energy development.
Just as Weilai uses power stations, NIO Space, etc. to build user ecology, it starts with new energy vehicles and is not satisfied with just selling cars.
At Tesla's 2022 general meeting of shareholders, Musk said, "There are many discussions about the competition between electric vehicle brands, but in fact, electric vehicles capture market share from fuel drivers, not from other electric vehicle brands."
He admitted that Tesla hopes to "prosper together" with the industry. The opening of hundreds of patents proves that it is necessary to work together with industry partners for energy transformation.
More valuable things
At Tesla's 2022 shareholders' meeting, Musk once again stressed the importance of the humanoid robot Tesla Bot, "Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus will be more valuable than cars. In the long run, it will solve the labor shortage."
As early as June 3, Musk revealed on Twitter that the prototype of the humanoid robot Tesla Bot Optimus will be unveiled on Tesla AI Day on September 30, and there will be many "exciting things" on Tesla AI Day in 2022.
Yiou Automobile learned that the robot head is equipped with a display screen to display information, and the camera of Autopilot is used as the visual perception sensor. There are eight cameras in total, and FSDComputer is used as the computing core.
Tesla also developed Dojo, a supercomputer for autonomous driving, and D1, an AI training chip.
At Tesla's 2022 shareholders' meeting, Musk revealed that since Tesla AI Day released the Dojo supercomputer last year, the development process of Tesla FSD (fully autonomous driving capability) has continued to accelerate.
The research of FSD 10.13 has been carried out for some time, and Tesla has made "some very important architecture improvements", such as improving the complex problems when turning left in unprotected complex road conditions.
In terms of improving and improving vehicle safety performance, Musk revealed that Tesla Autopilot can also "foresee" whether an accident will occur. If the probability is 99%, it can activate the safety belt warning function in advance and then open the airbag. Among all the vehicles tested by the U.S. government, Tesla vehicles are the ones with the lowest possibility of injury to users in accidents.
Musk said that Tesla is currently widely deploying the beta version of FSD in North America and will launch a large-scale test of the Full Automatic Driving Capability (FSD) software this year. At present, the cumulative mileage of the beta software has exceeded 40 million miles and is expected to exceed 100 million miles by the end of the year.
He firmly believes that we are solving very important problems for AI, so that it can eventually save millions of lives, prevent tens of millions of people from being seriously injured in traffic accidents, and make automatic driving safer than human driving.
Tesla's investment in intelligent technology transformed the car into an intelligent terminal, refreshed the inherent image of the car company, broke the ceiling of the value of the car company in the capital market, and became a technology company as famous as Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.
epilogue
The emergence of intelligent electric vehicles not only represents the transformation of the automobile industry, but also represents an outbreak of intelligent technology and a reconstruction of the user's travel lifestyle. Musk's application of intelligent auto driving technology to robots is just a corner of technology application.
Tesla is an expert in user operation and intelligent manufacturing. With BGM in the new energy era, Tesla has trotted all the way to today's position. From electric vehicle enterprises to robot and energy manufacturers, Tesla is full of imagination.
Tesla's journey of intelligent electric vehicles is far from over, and the fork in the road ahead is in front of us.
With this pioneering spirit, Tesla may not be unable to navigate the deep sea in the future.
