In the more than a year when the automotive industry has been plagued by chip shortages and global supply chain congestion, Tesla is expected to achieve the fastest annual production growth since 2018, becoming the only winner in this core shortage crisis.
Data from consultancy AlixPartners LLP shows that if there aren't enough semiconductors, global automakers could produce about 77 million cars this year, about 9 percent below expectations in January. The latest data from AutoForecast Solutions (AFS) confirms this impact, as of December 19, due to the shortage of automotive chip supply, global car production has been reduced by 10.272 million units, and global production is expected to be reduced by 11.31 million vehicles in 2021. IHS Markit predicts that the global automotive industry, affected by supply chain disruptions, will produce 15% less than in 2019. In stark contrast, analysts predict tesla will produce about 80 percent more cars this year than in 2020, on track for the fastest annual production growth since 2018.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Carefully observe the market, under the trend of lack of cores, each company is affected differently, Tesla's sales in the third quarter of the serious lack of cores increased to 73%, Model Y is 33,000 units of sales to become the first place in the SUV market sales, the Haval H6 has been sitting on the list for 99 consecutive months have fallen behind.
Tesla's success is due in part to its Silicon Valley DNA. Citing industry executives and consultants, the Wall Street Journal believes that Tesla has been able to keep the production line running in part because it relies on in-house software engineering expertise, which makes it more comfortable adapting to the global semiconductor shortage than many other rival car companies. From motor control to mobile phone charging, the use of chips is everywhere.
Tesla CEO Musk has said that when faced with shortages earlier this year, Tesla can quickly modify the necessary software to integrate alternative chips into its vehicles.
Industry analysts believe that Tesla' advantage as a relatively young car company is to design cars from scratch, rather than adding parts piecemeal for decades like many traditional car companies, which gives Tesla the ability to integrate systems. For example, Bain & Co. Research on Tesla's 2019 Model 3 shows that in the Model 3 sedan, only a set of semiconductors can be used to achieve functions such as speaker control, voice and gesture recognition, while in many other models, these functions require more chips to control separately.
Ganesh Moorthy, CEO of Microchip, said that compared with traditional car companies, car companies focusing on electric vehicles are more deeply involved in the technology field, so they have benefited a lot. They are more open to new information, which is why they build products that are more flexible.
Morgan Stanley's report summarizes four reasons why Tesla is "not short of cores."
First, Tesla has a strong vertical integration capability. Tesla is probably the most vertically integrated OEM in the world, so Tesla can understand the supply chain earlier and use multiple suppliers to guarantee supply. At the same time, Tesla's price is transparent, and the price of any consumer to pick up the car is the same, and there will be no channel premium.
Second, Tesla has the ability to develop its own chips. Tesla's most well-known self-developed chip is its autopilot chip, and its single chip AI computing power can reach 36TOPS, and each Tesla is equipped with two chips. It is these two self-driving chips that make Tesla's L2-level autopilot function an industry benchmark for a long time. Therefore, in the face of chip shortage, Tesla can respond quickly, and the chip team has the ability to develop or seek alternative chips. In the automotive industry, most companies do not have the ability to develop their own chips, and once there is a shortage of chips, they can only seek the assistance of suppliers, and the car companies themselves have no alternatives.
Third, Tesla has great bargaining power. Morgan Stanley researchers surveyed parts suppliers and found that Tesla has a more ambitious corporate culture than other car companies. At the same time, Tesla has accelerated the development of endogenous technology, keeping many suppliers on the alert.
Fourth, Tesla's scale is not huge, but suppliers are optimistic about Tesla's development. Compared with the traditional car giants, Tesla's scale is relatively small, and the purchase population is relatively small, so the impact of chip shortage is not obvious. At the same time, many suppliers are optimistic about Tesla's development. Even if Tesla's annual production scale is not large now, suppliers believe that Tesla will become a "big customer" in the next few years. If Tesla's annual output can reach several times that of now in a few years, and now maintain a good relationship with Tesla, the future can continue to get Tesla's orders, more long-term value.
Detroit-based lawyer Dan Sharkey, who represents auto parts suppliers, revealed that some of his clients are happy to do something for Tesla that they "don't want to do for other automakers." Sharkey said: "These suppliers feel that grabbing Tesla is like catching a rising star. ”
However, although Tesla is already a big winner in this chip crisis, it has not been able to completely avoid the impact of chip shortage.
Tesla's first-quarter earnings call confirmed for the first time that there was a shortage of chips, and the main gap was microcontroller chips. In February, it also closed its factory in Fremont, California, due to a shortage of spare parts. Tesla has also delayed the launch of new models because of chip shortages, and the long-awaited Tesla electric pickup truck and semi-trailer truck were originally scheduled to be put into production this year, and are now postponed to 2022 and 2023 respectively.
After that, Tesla's engineering team and software team began to solve the problem of parts shortage, including the development of alternative MCU chips and firmware, and finally solved the problem of MCU chip shortage.
In the second quarter, the company said that although the shortage of semiconductor supply is still continuing, it can further increase production.
In the second half of 2020 and throughout 2021, although the automotive industry is facing multiple challenges such as the epidemic and chip shortage, smart cockpits, L2 level autonomous driving, and electric vehicles are becoming the biggest growth points in the automotive industry. The "new four modernizations" of automobiles are becoming the consensus of the industry today, and chips are becoming one of the most core components in automobiles. Traditional automakers are constantly adjusting their past supply chain models to focus on chip capabilities. Gartner, a research firm, predicts that by 2025, half of the 10 largest automakers by market capitalization will design at least some of their own chips.
However, Tesla has come far to the forefront.
(Proofreading/Jouvet)