Can Tesla Continue Its Success In China?

Tesla never lacks news. The incident of refusing to deliver vehicles to pinduoduo group buying users has come to an end for the time being. Recently, it has been reported that Tesla China's official website has quietly launched the configuration and price of domestic model y.

Model y is Tesla's second model to be put into production in Shanghai's super factory after model 3. It is developed on the same platform with model 3 and has 75% common parts. It is also a heavy model of Tesla's "volume of running".

In March 2020, American model y was delivered in North America and other markets ahead of schedule. In the past few months, it has gradually become a sales highlight of Tesla. However, since the first half of last year, China's model y has no substantial progress information since it was launched on China's official website in the first half of last year.

According to some recent media reports, the domestic model y will be the first to launch two models, the long range all drive version and the performance high performance version, with the pre-sale prices of 488000 yuan and 535000 yuan respectively. In fact, the above pre-sale information has not changed for a year, and this round of media reports is just a "replay of the old music".

However, as the planned time point of production and delivery of domestic model y is getting closer and closer, the listing information of this relatively affordable SUV will indeed receive a lot of attention. For Tesla, whether model y can be made domestically or even ahead of schedule will have a great impact on its sales and profitability in the next stage.

After achieving net profit of 104 million US dollars in the second quarter of this year and four consecutive quarters of profits, Tesla has not been able to continue its "legend" steadily. Judging from the performance of the Chinese market, which has significantly increased its sales share this year, Tesla's performance in July has seen a correction. Although model 3 still ranks first in the domestic sales of new energy vehicles, its sales volume fell by more than 20% month on month.

New energy vehicles from home are also showing strong momentum. On August 24, a person familiar with Tesla's sales told the 21st century economic reporter that the sales volume of Tesla has declined, while the sales of Weilai have risen sharply. "Tesla has entered a frontal battle with domestic (new energy vehicle) brands."

The formation of "old tune heavy bomb"

Although the media reports are lively, the domestic model y still has a long way to go to the market. Tesla has not even given a relatively accurate price of domestic model Y - various signs show that the current pre-sale price is only a simple transformation of the price of imported model y.

According to the 21st century economic report, the reporter had previously concerned that the model Y model and pre-sale information first appeared on Tesla's official website in China at the end of May last year. At that time, Tesla announced that it would produce the model 3 standard range model in its Shanghai factory and open its booking at a price of 328000 yuan. Two months before, model y was officially launched in the United States.

However, the relevant information of model y did not appear in the official publicity, but was quietly online on the official website. At that time, in addition to the three long-range versions of the model, the long-range version of the model, which had a long-term range of $48000 and a full-length version of the model, were sold at a price of $48000.

Compared with the earliest information, two significant changes have taken place in the information of "domestic model y opened for pre-sale" recently. One is model Y's model version is one less (i.e. long range rear drive version), and the other is that the prices of the two models which are still in pre-sale have risen. Among them, the performance high-performance version has risen by 9000 yuan from 535000 yuan, and the long-range full drive version is 488000 yuan, up 10000 yuan.

The information of model y on China's official website is basically synchronized with that of the US headquarters. As a matter of fact, while the long-range rear drive version of model y was offline on the official website of China, there was no production or delivery of this model in the United States (it was not until August this year that Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the model was in trial production).

The price of the other two models changed in mid July last year. It was a big price adjustment from the headquarters to the Chinese market. The prices of model s / X and model 3 / y have changed, but the fluctuation is uncertain. Generally speaking, the price of imported model 3 has been generally lowered, while the price of several other models has increased to varying degrees. However, the price of domestic model 3, which has not been released for a long time, has not changed. It is not difficult to find that the price of model y is more in line with the imported model.

In addition, Tesla China has not officially launched the domestic version of model y. When the price of the domestic model 3 is released, the manufacturer can not only specify the specific model (standard endurance version), but also give the price different from the imported version of the same model.

Judging from Tesla's consistent operation, the pre-sale price given by the official website at present can not be equal to the price after real domestic production. Some people who have paid close attention to Tesla for a long time said that the current official website price can be ignored, and the price of domestic model y is expected to be 30000-50000 higher than that of model 3 with the same configuration.

Recently, it has been reported that the domestic model y has opened 7 seats for selection. However, according to the reporter's observation, only the relevant publicity appeared on the official website, and the real seven seat matching display will be opened in 2021. On August 24, a Tesla front-line salesman told reporters, "official notices such as (relevant information) are available."

Is it likely to be listed ahead of time?

Compared with the domestic version of model 3, the progress is slower. Although musk has repeatedly said that the Shanghai plant will produce and deliver model y in 2021, there is still no very accurate information about which version will be put into production first and when it will start scale delivery.

Previously, Tesla vice president of foreign affairs Tao Lin disclosed in an interview with Xinhua that the model y will be offline in the Shanghai factory in the first quarter of 2021. She said that the second phase of Shanghai's super factory is progressing very smoothly. It is expected to complete the construction by the end of this year, and mass production of model y models is expected to be achieved in the first quarter of next year.

With reference to the previous completion and commissioning of the Shanghai plant, many analysts said that model y is expected to go offline ahead of schedule, and even be put into production by the end of this year. Chang Yan, a media person who has been paying close attention to Tesla for a long time, said: "the progress of domestic model y is even faster than expected. It is not ruled out that another domestic version delivery day will be held on January 7 next year." On January 7 this year, the first batch of domestic model 3 was delivered.

Tesla China team obviously has more work to do in order to complete the delivery at the above time point. In May last year, the domestic model 3 already announced the reservation price, and then made several rounds of adjustment according to the subsidy and other factors, to a certain extent, it has become the "myth" of domestic model 3 delivery in January. But now it is only more than four months away from January. If the domestic model y will be delivered in mass production at the beginning of next year, the listing work is imminent.

It should be pointed out that, as another heavy-duty model of Tesla, model y has been put on the market in advance for a long time. According to the plan at the beginning of the release, the US made model y will be delivered as early as this autumn. However, in March this year, model y was delivered in North America and other markets, about six months ahead of schedule.

This has something to do with Musk's efforts to boost Tesla's sales as soon as possible. Last year, although Tesla's sales volume was considerable, objectively speaking, it was related to model 3's breakthrough in capacity hell and frequent price adjustment in sales strategy. Tesla, which makes cars into electronic products, is also faced with higher requirements for auto renewal iteration.

Similar situations may appear in the Chinese market. After several months of rapid development, the domestic model 3 also began to show a little fatigue. According to Datavision data, in July this year, Tesla's domestic insurance volume was 11623, a decrease of 25% on a month on month basis. Among them, 11456 domestic model 3 vehicles were insured, down 23% month on month.

The person familiar with Tesla sales said Tesla's recent sales are still not optimistic, "down by half in Beijing." Although Beijing is not the largest regional market in Tesla, it is basically stable in the top four. Data shows that the insurance volume of domestic model 3 in Beijing market has decreased by 35% in July.

At the same time, Tesla is still catching up with its domestic competitors in spite of its good scale. Take Weilai as an example. In July this year, a total of 4152 Weilai models were delivered, setting a new high. It is worth mentioning that Weilai's third mass production model ec6 benchmarked model y. previously, Weilai planned to set the price according to the price of model y, but eventually ec6 was listed before the domestic model y, and it is expected to start delivery in late September.

The above-mentioned people believe that compared with domestic new energy vehicle brands such as Weilai, Tesla also has obvious shortcomings. After the two sides start a frontal battle, it is difficult to say who can be proud of the Chinese market in the long run.