In terms of cost reduction, Tesla will never be able to beat it.
Recently, CNBC reported that according to the disclosure of two Tesla employees and the company's internal communication records exposed by the US media, in order to cope with the chip shortage and achieve the fourth quarter delivery target, Tesla will cancel one of the two electronic control units in the electronic power steering system on the Chinese-made Model 3 and Model Y.
Tesla said that this change will not bring safety issues, because the removed parts belong to the "secondary electronic control unit", which will be needed only for future upgrades to L3 level autopilot functions, and Tesla still uses L2 assisted driving functions, namely Autopilot and FSD, without the need for dual-control steering systems.
The cut involves not only domestic models, but also tens of thousands of cars exported to Australia, the Uk, Germany and other parts of Europe. It's unclear whether Tesla will take the same role reductions for products manufactured in the U.S. or exported to the U.S. domestically.
Although the temporary reduction due to chip shortage is understandable, will the price of the reduced model be reduced? Who will bear the cost of upgrading to L3 autonomous vehicle modification? These issues are not clear to Tesla in the exposed communication records.
This is not the first time Tesla has reduced its allocation.
Last May, Tesla removed the front seat waist support on the Model 3 and Model Y models without informing users. Musk responded at the time that the driving log records showed that the function was almost not used, so consumers did not need to buy; in November, Tesla canceled the central control and rear USB interfaces without informing consumers, only reserved the holes, and also cancelled the wireless charging function of the mobile phone, and only responded after the media exposure that because the chips and parts were out of stock, it was planned to refill the USB interface from December.
At the beginning of January this year, the news that Tesla had cancelled the knee air bags of domestic models was exposed in China. At that time, customer service responded that the role of air bags was not large, and domestic regulations did not have this requirement, and Tesla's move was a local custom.
In addition to Tesla, last year, including GM, BMW and other car companies also cut some functions due to the lack of core problems, but these car companies have informed the reduction and provided some price concessions to compensate consumers. In contrast, Tesla not only did not communicate with consumers, but the current price not only did not fall, but rose by more than 10,000 compared with a year ago. This really makes consumers feel cold.
In particular, the reduction of knee airbags in domestic models, although the domestic regulatory threshold is low and no requirements are made, compared with the reduction treatment of overseas models, consumers are ultimately difficult to reconcile.
You know, as Tesla's largest overseas market, Tesla's revenue in the Chinese market in 2021 reached 13.844 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 107.8%, accounting for 25.7% of the company's revenue. And Tesla is giving back to Chinese consumers in this way...
As an evangelist of new energy vehicles, Tesla's cost compression has indeed brought good news to the popularity of electric vehicles, but consumers need to feel respected on a psychological level than rough cost reductions.