Tesla's "Black Under the Lights"

Text/Leju Finance Jin Wenyu

In recent years, many domestic new energy vehicle companies are looking at Tesla, there are always new products appearing and claiming to benchmark Tesla, hoping to get more inspiration from Tesla's success, and Tesla's market performance is indeed not bad.

Recently, Tesla disclosed the fourth quarter and full year of 2021 delivery data show that in the fourth quarter, Tesla produced more than 305,000 vehicles and delivered 308,000 vehicles, setting a new quarterly delivery record for six consecutive quarters. Tesla will produce a total of 930,000 new cars and deliver 936,000 new cars for the whole year of 2021. Among them, the Model 3 and Model Y delivered 911,000 units throughout the year, which is a popular model of Tesla.

Behind the numbers of a ride, domestic consumers can be said to be indispensable. Even Tesla founder and CEO Musk excitedly tweeted: the main background is a tiger with its back to the camera, a hand in front of the "OK" posture, the following copy is: "2022, here we go." ”

2022 is China's "Year of the Tiger", a unique zodiac symbol that can't help but make people wonder, Tesla is still looking at the Chinese market with huge development potential. Judging from Tesla's planning and data in recent months, Tesla is not simply entering the Chinese market, but it is possible to use China as the main battlefield in the next few years.

However, in the past 2021, Musk and Tesla have not all harvested flowers and applause, and frequent safety accidents, price increases, rights protection and other storms still make them suffer.

Massive recalls

Since 2021, Tesla has been investigated many times for quality and safety issues, involving touch screen displays, autopilot assist functions and other aspects. In addition, Tesla has also faced complaints from car owners about poor manufacturing quality, uneven customer service, sudden price increases, and delays in interior selection.

On December 30, 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that Tesla is recalling 475,300 electric vehicles due to two different safety issues involved. The recall covers 356,300 Model 3 models produced between 2017 and 2020 and 119,000 Model S models produced from 2014 to 2021.

NHTSA said on its website that the reason for the recall was a technical flaw in Tesla. The first safety hazard is that the rearview camera harness of Tesla electric vehicles may be damaged by the opening and closing of the trunk cover, resulting in the rearview camera image not being displayed.

The second safety concern is that the Tesla car's front trunk latch assembly may be misaligned, preventing the sub-hood latch from meshing. This means that these vehicles do not meet the requirements of federal motor vehicle safety standards.

Such a wide range of recalls, Tesla is not the first time to experience. According to the official website information, Tesla has carried out a total of 14 recalls, of which 10 officially said that no relevant personnel were injured or collided before the recall, and the most frequent reason was that the quality of the parts was different and the installation was improper, 7 times. Counting the previous recall plans, Tesla recalled more than 900,000 vehicles worldwide this year.

As far as the domestic point of view is concerned, on February 5, 2021, Tesla China announced the recall of some imported Tesla Model S and Model X models, a total of 36126 units, mainly due to the disappearance of camera images, windshield defogging and defrost system failure, etc.; on June 26, due to the problem of the vehicle's active cruise control system, there were safety hazards in extreme cases, Tesla China actively recalled 285,000 cars, involving some imported and domestic Model 3 and Model Y models.

Price increase storm

In addition to being trapped in the recall swamp, in the Chinese market, with the decline of state subsidies, Tesla's price increase tide has also begun. Since the beginning of this year, Tesla's sales price in China and the United States has been rising. Repeated price increases and price cuts have attracted constant doubts at home and abroad.

On December 31, 2021, Tesla's official website in China showed that the price of the Model 3 rear-wheel drive version was adjusted to 265,700 yuan, an increase of 10,000 yuan from the previous price; the price of the Model Y rear-wheel drive version was adjusted to 301,800 yuan, an increase of 21,000 yuan from the previous price. The price increase was raised twice in a week, which made many consumers discouraged.

In fact, Tesla's price increase is not a new thing in 2021.

On July 16, 2021, the price of the Model S long-endurance version was adjusted from 800,000 yuan to 830,000 yuan, an increase of 30,000 yuan. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the main reason for Tesla's price increase is the supply chain pressure and rising raw material costs of the entire industry; but on August 4, Tesla's China website showed that the price of the Model S long-endurance version was raised from the previous 830,000 yuan to 860,000 yuan. The price of the Model X long-endurance version model was adjusted to 910,000 yuan, and the price increased by 30,000 yuan.

In addition to the increase in sales prices, even the new car insurance of new energy vehicle owners has also undergone a significant adjustment. At the end of December, new energy exclusive car insurance was launched. However, after the reform of new energy exclusive car insurance, with the increase of insurance rights, the premiums to be paid by car owners have also increased dramatically. According to the feedback of many netizens, different models, the increase varies between 20% and 80%.

Some car owners said that the insured price of the high-performance modelY was originally more than 8,000 yuan, and by the 27th of the policy release, it rose to 14,000 yuan, an increase of up to 80%. Another Model 3 owner's premium even went up 125 percent.

For the rise in the cost of new energy insurance, some netizens even laughed and said: the fuel money saved by buying new energy vehicles has been pulled back by insurance. The price increase of captive insurance makes many car owners feel "inexplicable" but "helpless".

Rushed delivery

In the year of "lack of cores" in the global automotive industry, from the perspective of sales, Tesla did hand over an answer sheet that exceeded expectations. As of November 2021, the cumulative delivery volume of Tesla's Shanghai factory in 2021 has exceeded the mark of 400,000 vehicles, reaching 413,300 units, an increase of 242% year-on-year. There is no doubt that it is precisely because of the huge contribution given by this sector that Tesla's global production and sales will exceed the 930,000 mark throughout 2021.

But behind the eye-catching sales data, there are also many product defects. In order to complete the delivery volume, in the most tense period of chips, when Tesla delivered new cars, even smart accessories such as USB ports were not fully equipped.

Tesla said that due to the shortage of some chips, and users are in a hurry to pick up the car, so it has come up with this countermeasure. Some accessories will be replenished to the user after they are in stock. Users can choose whether to deliver the new car in advance, if they are not in a hurry, then wait for the accessories to arrive and deliver the new car. The company plans to reload the USB interface from December, but the specific time cannot be promised.

In December 2021, in order to alleviate the problems of capacity supply and delivery tension, Tesla announced that it would use the batteries produced in 2017 on some of the new 2021 Model 3, so that the new car had a 12% reduction in mileage due to battery aging. Such a hasty task goal is inevitably accompanied by a decline in product strength.

However, at the Tesla shareholders' meeting held in October 2021, the "painting cake" continued. Among them, the most surprising thing is that Tesla has set a goal of achieving annual sales of 20 million vehicles by 2030.

In Musk's view, Tesla's compound annual growth rate has reached 71%, which is a very frightening growth rate in all car companies. However, how much incremental the Chinese market can provide has become a decisive factor in whether it can be successfully achieved.

Source: Leju Finance