author
Barosaurus, Zhang Zhidong
Whether there are near-term worries or not, Tesla needs to have a sense of long-term concern in China.
Responsible editor 丨cha Youyin
Edit 丨 Chic
When our colleagues in the C dimension visited the Tesla store yesterday and marveled at the crowded customers and the high spirit of sales, a Tesla (former) employee threw out a bomb - Tesla leaders "violently coerced" his departure.
"Violent coercion of relevant leaders to leave the post";
"Snatching a phone and hiding in the toilet won't help";
"The glass doors of the office are broken";
……
The above is a statement from Leila, a delivery agent at a Tesla Hefei store. According to the parties concerned, he was "violently coerced" by the leadership to leave his post, and successively suffered from physical conflicts, violent snatching of mobile phones, restrictions on personal freedom and other incidents.
▲ Broken office doors, and broken parts of the bathroom
In fact, the "departure storm" is a melon in late November, but the parties updated the article on their official account on December 13, and yesterday also released content on some platforms, indicating that their work status has now changed from suspension to "leaving the post". In addition, there is news that "Tesla is laying off employees in disguise", so it is not exactly "old news and new speculation".
The problem is, in today's easy reversal of all kinds of melons, let's not be busy determining who is wrong, it is better to analyze and analyze what impact this wave has on Tesla.
01
Acclimatized? Layoffs in disguise?
The trigger for the incident came from a business mistake made by the parties in July this year.
Episode 1: In mid-July, Leila mistakenly duplicates another order number during operation, causing the customer to match the vehicle in advance.
Episode 2: Tesla receives a report from Leila's colleagues and places a suspension investigation on Leila.
If it is only these two plots, it is expected that everyone will not have any doubts: business operation errors, violations of rules, and punishment according to the rules.
However, the parties planted two bombs in the statement.
First, double standard.
Leila declared: After the incident was first discovered, the customer configuration was corrected, and the waiting time in the middle generated emotions among the customers, but also delivered the correctly configured car in the normal delivery cycle. In addition, Leila also said that the "misoperation" incident was not done by himself, other employees have also made similar mistakes, and when Leila asked the leader why "others don't sign me to sign", the leader replied "you have to reflect on yourself". Leila also provided a recording to prove the details.
Second, the details of "violent coercion".
According to Leila, when he went from the conference room to the bathroom, hoping to seek help from his family, he was chased out by Lu and Jiang because he was carrying a mobile phone (a work phone), and chased all the way to the bathroom, jiang slammed the door open and snatched the mobile phone. Lu Mou said outside at this time: Grab the wrong one, it is another mobile phone.
Leila took advantage of this gap to run out of the bathroom and curled up in the aisle, shouting to the outside world: "Help! Please! Help me! Several customers and colleagues rushed to hear the noise. Seeing this situation, the customer suggested that the police be dealt with, and Jiang and Lu did not dare to continue.
However, we can infer some possibilities from some side information.
First of all, this Leila is not an ideal employee of Tesla. It is reported that Leila's labor contract law will expire on February 19, 2022, and Yang Mou, Tesla's legal department, clearly informed Leila that the company will not renew it after the contract expires. So is there a suspicion: Tesla borrowed the business operation error of the parties and fired them in advance? At present, this probability is relatively high.
Second, Tesla's rapid expansion in China may indeed encounter "growing pains." Another news broke that Tesla forced its HR human resources to lay off employees. What happened to Leila is likely to be a manifestation of the disguised layoffs.
So the question is, is it because Tesla found that the team's expansion pace is too fast and beyond the demands, so it needs to shrink, or the team's entry of employees who are not ideal needs to be optimized? Only from the perspective of explosive orders, it seems to be the latter, but Tesla and new forces belong to the types of orders in the early stage and the urgent need to find support in the later stage, and it is still impossible to rule out the possibility of cost pressure brought about by radical expansion and then layoffs in disguise.
Third, Tesla still has not fully adapted to the Chinese environment.
People familiar with Tesla's corporate culture know that Tesla pays attention to "efficiency first", internal employees face great work pressure, and once the performance is outstanding, the rewards are also quite generous. "Musk is an extremely demanding person, and this kind of rhythm is something that a lot of people can't adapt to," said Ricardo Reyes, Tesla's former vice president of public relations.
According to the statements provided by current and former Tesla executives, if employees disagree with Musk, most of them will end up leaving; as for those who cannot complete Tesla's ruthless high targets, it is even more natural to be fired. "Give you an impossible mission, you're done, you're going to get a big bonus, and if you're done, you're leaving."
How can Chinese employees fully accept this? Instead of accusing Leila of "bureaucracy in Tesla's Suwan delivery department has taken root," as Leila complained.
The most difficult thing in the world is not to establish their own corporate culture and value orientation, but to let more people read their own corporate culture and accept their own value orientation.
Even a strong brand force such as Tesla will encounter this kind of trouble. And such troubles are precisely causing harm to Tesla in the long run, even if sales are still hot in the short term.
02
The short term can be ignored, and the long term is difficult to sit by
Judging by the C dimension, even if Leila maximizes the momentum this time, it will not significantly hurt Tesla's sales in the short term, the main reasons are as follows:
First, the negative news has a lag, and the volkswagen collision door is also half a year late to affect sales;
Second, the value orientation of this group of users is different from that of previous users, and Tesla's advantages are valued, such as intelligence and brand reputation;
Third, the news that "violently coercing employees" belongs to the industry level is classified as "to B" in the news category, and tesla's automatic acceleration and inability to brake belong to the product level, and it is classified as "to C" in the news category. So, even the "brake door" has not been able to stop Tesla's sales momentum, and how can "violent coercion of employees" play an immediate role?
Fourth, our colleagues in Shanghai local store survey, and Shanghai is Tesla's home in China, consumers like the new Ruiyang brand, here many people can not distinguish what is driving assistance, what is automatic driving, Tesla what are the shortcomings.
However, there are always two sides to the story. In the short term, Tesla can be safe, which does not mean that it will sit on the throne for a long time.
Tesla, who pursues the ultimate, may not have a deep understanding of this oriental philosophy.
Tesla's influence and stock price have reached an all-time high. Although Musk also released the "Tesla annual sales of 20 million vehicles in 2030", it is necessary to achieve an average annual compound growth rate of 35% for 10 consecutive years on the basis of 500,000 vehicles in 2020, and to ensure that the pure electric vehicle user group can achieve such a high growth rate. Therefore, it is indeed extremely difficult to climb further to apple-level trillion-dollar market capitalization.
On the one hand, it is because Tesla can rise rapidly and is not completely dependent on its own strength. Now the United States needs to pick up a Silicon Valley technology idol leader after Jobs, Musk is the best candidate, but also need to maintain and even pull up the U.S. stock market, it is bound to protect Tesla; China needs Tesla as a catfish to drive the development of the new energy industry chain. The two most powerful countries in the world jointly open the door for Tesla, there will be many states in the United States to turn a blind eye to direct sales, China agreed to Tesla's sole proprietorship to build a factory, and only then did Tesla's current development.
On the other hand, while Tesla stabs the knife of traditional car companies and consumers, the sharp blade will also be directly inserted into its own heart socket. No consumer-oriented company can survive the rules of the industry, Tesla is certainly not "completely ignoring consumers", but too focused on the self-understanding of technology, and some people's preferences to cater to, naturally difficult to say for a long time.
Public opinion likes highly topical people and events, so Musk and Tesla have stepped onto the altar in a tidal wave of speech, with a posture of ups and downs on the cusp of the waves. However, in the end, Musk is not a god, Tesla is not a miracle, everything is a product of the times and laws. While the public participates in the "creation of gods", the next stage may be the collective "worship of gods".
Will Musk and Tesla, who always stab themselves in the back, fall into this "war of the gods"?
C-DIMENSION
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