Which was the highest output in the nation's auto factories last year?
Not Nissan, a Japanese car company known for its efficient and refined management, not a multi-year American car sales champion and a century-old store, not Ford, which invented the automobile production line and created the epoch-making model T.
Neither. The answer is somewhat unexpected, but not bizarre: Bloomberg, after counting more than 70 car factories in the United States, found that the highest production in 2021 will be the Tesla factory in Fremont, California.
You know, only two or three years ago, this factory was still in the "production hell", because it could not complete the order on time, and had to postpone delivery to consumers again and again. In 2021, other car companies have declined due to tight supply chains, and although Tesla's California factory is also affected by the supply chain, it has increased production against the trend, and finally left Nissan, Toyota, Ford, General Motors and other automobile factories. Bloomberg said: "Now, Tesla's California factory has a title worthy of boasting — the most prolific car factory in North America."
Perhaps only Tesla's brother's Shanghai factory can compete with the California factory. If it is about seniority, the Shanghai factory can only be regarded as a little brother: it has just produced cars for more than two years, which is a fraction of the California factory. However, according to Tesla's recently disclosed earnings report, Tesla's Shanghai factory car deliveries exceeded 480,000 in 2021, surpassing the North American champion Tesla's California factory (about 450,000).
This is of course the embodiment of "Tesla speed", and it is also the embodiment of "Shanghai speed" created by the fertile land of Shanghai.
Inside Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory
Office in the mezzanine of the workshop
At the end of last year, in an upscale ballroom in Washington, D.C., White House officials, members of Congress, and business leaders gathered for a business forum organized by the Wall Street Journal. The political and business celebrities present were all dressed in suits and shoes and looked solemn.
At this time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on the big screen directly in front of the banquet hall: he was in his jacket and his eyes were strangely closed. Celebrities at the scene saw that behind Musk was a car production workshop, and there were workers shuttling back and forth from time to time.
The live host asked, "Where are you now?" ”
Musk said: "I am in the near-completion of Tesla's Texas factory. You see behind me is the factory. Our office and factory are together. Management and engineers can't be alone in ivory towers, the closer they are to the factory, the better, which I think is important. ”
The host, who was obviously embarrassed, said, "I'm having a video conversation with a lot of CEOs right now in the ivory tower in Washington. "I'm afraid the CEOs sitting in the audience will be embarrassed, how many of them have offices in the factory?
From the design of the office location, one can get a glimpse of the mystery of "Tesla speed".
Before the Spring Festival, the reporter visited Tesla's gigafactory in Shanghai. The reporter stopped the car in front of the factory, and Xiao Gao, a Tesla employee responsible for guiding the visit, came out of the factory. "Our workstation is in a mezzanine floor above the workshop, where the president works," he said. From the glass window of the office is the workshop. To get past, go down a few flights of stairs. ”
Staff work inside Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory
Accompanying the reporter in the production workshop, Xiao Gao pointed to the unfinished cars in front of him and said: "These cars all have owners." "Tesla is different from traditional car companies, it has no inventory, consumers order first, and the workshop reproduces." Once the vehicle is off the line, it will be handed over to the consumer as soon as possible.
Speed also stems from the reengineering of manufacturing processes. Unlike most plant designs, Tesla factories are not unfolded on a flat surface, but three-dimensional. Standing on the ground is the production line, and in mid-air is the aircraft transport chain. Even the mechanical arms common to modern manufacturing have different arrangements in Tesla's workshop. In the welding workshop, the reporter saw several mechanical arms working around a car, in addition to a mechanical arm protruding from the body, "in all directions" does not seem to be enough to describe the position relationship between the mechanical arm and the car.
"The entire supply chain is in China"
Tesla and the iPhone are often compared: they are both latecomers to the industry, they are all driving great changes in the industry with revolutionary products, and their gross profit margins are much higher than their peers...
They also have one thing in common: they all have production lines in China, at least a large part of them.
Long before the iPhone hit the market, Apple understood that Making in China was critical.
In 2007, just over a month before the iPhone's scheduled shelf time, Jobs suddenly proposed changing the iPhone's screen material from plastic to glass. Because the latter is less likely to leave scratches. "I want a glass screen, and it has to be done in 6 weeks," he said. ”
A subordinate walked out of Jobs's office and immediately booked a ticket to China. He could only go to China.
Apple chose Made in China for two reasons: Chinese factories are flexible, and China's supply chain is stronger than the United States.
After Jobs made the request for a glass screen, the above advantages immediately became clear.
A production line for smartphone components at a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province
For years, mobile phone manufacturers have been reluctant to use glass screens because they require precise cutting and polishing, which is difficult to meet. Apple has selected Corning in the United States to produce large pieces of tempered glass panels. However, to cut glass panels into millions of iPhone screens, you have to find an idle cutting factory, hundreds of experimental glass panels, and a large group of intermediate technicians. Preparation alone consumes a large amount of money.
Just then, a Chinese factory came up to bid for the work.
According to the New York Times, when Apple's team arrived at the Chinese factory, the owner had already begun to build a new plant. A former Apple executive recalled that the owner's explanation was, "It was preparing in advance so that our orders wouldn't catch us off guard." "They have a warehouse full of glass samples and can offer free samples to Apple. The plant owner also promised to provide technicians at little cost. They have built dormitories in the factory, and employees can be on call 24 hours a day.
The Chinese factory eventually got the order.
"The entire supply chain is now in China." Another former Apple executive said.
Tesla's Shanghai factory, like Apple's, has benefited from China's well-established supply chain. Need a steering wheel? 3 kilometers to the west, Lingang Joyson Electronics has it. Need to adjust the aluminum alloy element content? A few streets away, Yousheng Aluminum immediately customized. Do you need a new energy battery? CATL has built a battery module base next to the gigafactory.
In the Lingang New Area, around the Tesla factory, upstream suppliers settled down to open factories.
Workers at Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory are at work
On May 21 last year, Shanghai Lingang New Area held a centralized signing of intelligent new energy automobile industry projects, Yanfeng Automobile, Guangwei Vientiane, Dongshan Precision, Magna, Liszt and other 18 intelligent new energy automobile industry projects landed, covering automotive chips, automatic driving systems, automotive interiors, bodywork, new materials, precision machining and other fields. In August last year, the relevant person in charge of the Lingang New Area introduced that the new area has gathered more than 100 intelligent new energy vehicle related enterprises, many of which are Tesla suppliers.
Thanks to Lingang and China's perfect supply chain, Tesla's Shanghai factory has a high localization rate of parts. Musk said on the July 2020 earnings call that in the past, a large number of parts manufactured in other parts of the world were shipped to Shanghai; in the future, if it is purchased entirely in China, the cost of the vehicle will be greatly reduced.
At present, the localization rate of parts in Tesla's Shanghai factory has reached more than 90%. In contrast, the "country on wheels" in the United States, Tesla's California factory is only 73%.
"Shanghai Speed"
On October 10, 2021, in a clearing outside the German capital Berlin, a large open-air celebration called giga Fest was taking place. Behind the open space stands Tesla's brand-new Berlin Gigafactory.
Ferris wheels are set up in the clearings, DJ-played festive songs, vegetarian food trucks serve global cuisine and, of course, German favourite beers, and a brand new brand, Giga Bier. But these are supporting characters. The protagonist is a Tesla car shipped from Shanghai for German consumers to experience.
This is Tesla's celebration to celebrate the completion of the world's second overseas factory, the Berlin factory. Tesla CEO Musk personally flew from the United States to Berlin to help the "Super Festival". Thousands of Europeans came to hear about it, and in addition to drinking and listening to music, they could also walk into the Tesla factory and watch the cool production lines.
However, there is a small problem: at the time of the "Super Festival", Tesla's Berlin factory was not 100% complete, let alone started to build cars.
Among the crowd attending the celebration, someone asked Musk: When will the factory start? Musk replied: "We are ready to start production in a few months, basically (2021) November or December, and hope to deliver the first cars in December." ”
But Musk's predictions fell short, and by the time of publication (early February 2022), there was no news of Tesla's Berlin plant going into production.
In China, thousands of miles away, a month before the site of the Berlin factory was determined, tesla's first overseas factory, the Shanghai factory construction project, had just been completed. At that time, there was no huge "super festival" held in Shanghai, because there was no leisure, and the factory was immediately put into operation.
Nowadays, in the workshop of Tesla's Shanghai factory, as long as there are guests to visit, the employee xiaogao in charge of the explanation always leads them to see a poster at the entrance. That is the timeline of the Construction Project of the Shanghai Plant: the land transfer contract was signed on October 17, 2018, the foundation stone was laid on January 7, 2019, the completion and acceptance was completed on October 25, 2019, and the first model 3 was delivered to internal employees on December 30, 2019...
Xiaogao will emphasize to the guests every time: "From the foundation laying of the factory to the delivery of the first car, it takes only 11 months." ”
The start of construction that year, the completion of the year, and the production of the year, this is the "Tesla speed" that was later talked about.
Newly built Tesla Shanghai R&D innovation center and data center
Some people may wonder, isn't engineering construction just about building a house? The house is built quickly, what is there to boast about? In fact, a project is not as simple as building a house, and even building a house is only the simplest part of it. Pre-construction approval, post-completion acceptance – land use, environmental protection, water conservancy, civil air defense, fire protection, gas, earthquake safety, etc. – each requires the participation of government departments, and each one is indispensable, both at home and abroad.
Just look at Tesla's Berlin factory. From the moment the first brick was laid at the site, engineering construction projects have been plagued by cumbersome approval processes and repeatedly opposed by local environmental groups. A German industry insider said: "Tesla did not expect to spend 3 months to discuss the problem of cutting down trees. As a result, the completion of the Berlin factory was repeatedly postponed.
The total construction area of tesla in the first phase of the Shanghai factory is 157,000 square meters. If we follow the traditional practice, from the signing of the contract to the start of construction, the approval time of such a large factory is at least 10 months, while tesla's Shanghai project only takes half the time. The acceptance is completed simultaneously with the project construction.
Shortening the time for approval and acceptance is not that the competent authorities have relaxed the standards - one item of the examination can not be less, and each item of the examination must be tested. The trick to saving time is that they have improved their workflow, treating themselves as a shop assistant to the business, and compressing time as much as possible within the scope of the law.
Now entering Tesla's Shanghai factory, you can see that a small river on the west side of the factory isolates the factory from the outside world, and three small bridges connect the inside and outside.
However, according to the original municipal plan, there was only one bridge. If the plan is to be revised and two more are to be built, the approval process alone will take a year.
But Tesla needs these two bridges too much: on the west side of the factory area with a north-south span of more than one kilometer, if there is only one bridge and one door, how can it not meet the needs of logistics and people flow.
On the one hand, there is an unavoidable approval process, and on the other hand, there is an actual demand that cannot be escaped. What to do? The Lingang Management Committee and other departments still found a two-pronged solution: the construction of the bridge was included in the water conservancy infrastructure project, so that it did not need to revise the plan, but also met the needs of enterprises.
In the construction of the Tesla project, there are many stories like these three bridges. Benefiting from the institutional innovation and personal service of the government department, Tesla's Shanghai factory achieved the start of construction, completion and production in the same year, running out of the "Tesla speed". Musk said this amazing speed was created by the Shanghai municipal government and the Tesla team.
The first batch of cars from Tesla's overseas gigafactory were delivered in Shanghai
Therefore, "Tesla Speed" is also "Shanghai Speed" and "China Speed".
At the end of last year, at the business forum held by the Wall Street Journal, an audience member finally asked Musk: How do you view China and the US-China relationship?
Musk replied: "Tesla and China have a good relationship ... I want you to remember that we are human beings together, and let us strive to build positive relationships and work for the common prosperity of humanity. ”
(Shangguan News)