Text/Teng Sanmao
Produced by car totem, it is not allowed to reprint without permission
● ● ●
At the end of January 2022, Tesla released the fourth quarter and full year of 2021 financial reports, of which the total annual production of Tesla vehicles in 2021 was 930,422 units, and the total delivery volume was 936,172 vehicles, an increase of 87% compared with 499,647 units in 2020.
However, these data have nothing to do with India.
A few days ago, the Indian government rejected Tesla CEO Elon Musk's request for tax cuts for imported electric vehicles, saying that the regulations have allowed the import of incompletely assembled vehicles at lower rates and assembled and produced locally.
Vivek Johri, Chairman of the Central Committee on Indirect Taxes and Customs at the Ministry of Finance of India, said: "We have conducted a study on whether tariffs need to be readjusted, but some domestic production has already begun and some investment projects are already operating under the current tariff structure. So it's clear that this doesn't constitute an obstacle. ”
Nitin Gadkari, India's Minister of Transport and Transport, has also said that if Tesla wants to have an Indian market, it must build factories in India, avoid selling "Made in China" in India, and export "Made in India" Tesla to the world.
hehe.
▍ The tariffs are "frighteningly high" and have not yet entered India
In Tesla's view, trying to sell Tesla products in India first, and then considering whether to build a factory in India according to demand, is a relatively stable development route, which is a bit like the market development model in China and Europe. But the Indian authorities do not think so, and have been using high tariffs to pressure, in fact, to let Tesla directly in India to build factories and export.
From last year to now, india's local states of Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Trengana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have invited Tesla to build factories there.
It is understood that the current tariff on imported cars in India is 60%-100%, the tariff on imported cars priced below 3 million rupees (about 40,000 US dollars) is 60%, and imported cars above this price have to pay 100% tariffs, which is equivalent to doubling the price.
The Modi government has been encouraging Tesla to produce locally, but Musk wants India to provide tax breaks first, allowing Tesla to prioritize the sale of non-Locally Made Vehicles at competitive prices.
Tesla has more than once proposed to the Indian government to cut the import tax on electric vehicles to 40%. In July last year, Tesla officially sent a letter to India's Ministry of Transport and Industry, hoping to reduce the import tariff on electric vehicles from the current 60%-100% to 40%.
Today, negotiations between Tesla and the Indian government have been going on for years, but disagreements over whether to build factories locally and import tariffs have led to a stalemate. Musk had earlier said he hoped to start selling Tesla vehicles in India as early as 2019, but four years later, that goal is still out of reach.
Entering 2022, as people can see today, the Indian government made the final choice, rejecting Tesla's proposal and choosing to maintain the original tax rate.
At present, Tesla only has a low-end version of the Model 3 base price of less than $40,000, other models are in the range of $40,000-120,000, if the current tax rate into the Indian market, sales are expected to be worrying.
▍ Red Eye Tesla China's "Catfish" Effect
The reason why the Indian top management insists on letting Tesla build a factory in its country is the consideration of the entire new energy automobile industry.
Let's first look at the demonstration effect of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory.com.
At present, Tesla Shanghai Super Factory has reached more than 90% of the localization rate of parts, in the context of the strategy of continuously expanding reform and opening up and stabilizing the growth of foreign investment in China, around the Tesla Shanghai Super Factory, many auto parts companies in Suzhou, Ningbo, Nantong, Wuxi, Shaoxing, Taizhou, Nanjing, Changzhou and other Yangtze River Delta "package area" formed Tesla's "4-hour circle of friends", forming a large-scale industrial cluster, injecting new vitality into the rapid development of new energy vehicles.
For example, in the Pudong Lingang area where the Shanghai Tesla Gigafactory is located, Tesla has shown a relatively strong industrial driving force.
It is reported that in 2021, the total industrial output value of Lingang New Area will reach 255 billion yuan. New energy vehicles have become the first 100-billion-level industry, and under the pull of Tesla, an industrial ecology covering the whole ecological field of new energy vehicles such as automobile chips, automatic driving systems, automotive interiors, car bodies, new materials, and precision machining has been built.
It is estimated that by 2025, the scale of the intelligent new energy automobile industry in the Lingang New Area of Pudong, Shanghai is expected to exceed 300 billion yuan, becoming a cluster of intelligent new energy automobile industry with global influence. In the 2021 Tesla annual financial report, the Shanghai Gigafactory was also greatly affirmed, in the face of global supply chain, logistics and transportation, labor and other manufacturing challenges, "local production is crucial to reduce the cost of bicycles and improve the stability of the global supply chain." ”
Tesla brings advanced industrial concepts, processes and standards into China, driving the innovation and development of the domestic new energy vehicle industry chain, but also promotes suppliers such as batteries, motors, electronic controls and auto parts to be active on the global stage, establish competitive advantages in many fields, and continue to climb to the high end of the value chain, so that the international market has a new understanding of Chinese manufacturing.
In 2021, Tesla's total annual revenue is as high as 53.823 billion US dollars, of which China occupies 13.844 billion US dollars, second only to the US market, and has risen by more than 110% for two consecutive years, of which the Shanghai Gigafactory provides strong support for Tesla, only in 2021, Shanghai Gigafactory exported 160,000 vehicles, of which model 3 exports reached 130,000 vehicles, accumulative exports to Germany, Italy, France and dozens of other countries.
This is also what India dreams of today.
If Tesla builds a factory in India, it can bring the most direct benefits to India - to promote the development of India's entire supply chain for the new energy automobile industry, thereby driving other local brand manufacturing. On the contrary, if it is imported and sold, it will not be able to promote the development of the entire industrial chain.
▍ India's automotive industry abacus
India has always had the dream of becoming a South Asian hegemon and even a world power, and after years of development, when India has made great progress in the IT and pharmaceutical industries, it has set its sights on manufacturing, especially after Modi became India's prime minister in 2014, and its ambitious dream of Indian revival has never stopped.
When Chinese manufacturing swept the world, the Modi government with a rich and cheap young labor force also began to compete for the "business" of manufacturing, in India's view, with manufacturing as a breakthrough, vigorously developing manufacturing can become a world power for India to become a "solid foundation".
Therefore, when China was in a huge oscillation period of transformation from manufacturing to "intelligent manufacturing" in recent years, Modi quickly took matters into his own hands and tailored a key plan for the development of "Made in India" for the revitalization of the Indian economy.
In this "Make in India" initiative, the Modi government hopes to increase the share of manufacturing in India's GDP from 15% to 25% by encouraging foreign direct investment, lowering industry access standards, and improving the domestic business environment, and creating jobs for the 12 million young Indians who enter the labor market every year.
In terms of design concepts, sales channels and other aspects, the Indian textile industry, which is closer to the high-end markets in Europe and the United States, has taken the lead in ushering in a boom in development. According to a study by the U.S. International Trade Commission, after years of development, India has become the world's second largest textile and apparel producer, absorbing more than 35 million people to employment, and is the only country that has the ability to compete with China in the textile field.
To revitalize the IT industry, the Indian government has introduced a lot of preferential policies, actively attracted apple and Tesla and other technology giants to invest in India to build factories, and in order to allow Apple, Samsung and other large factories to move over, the Indian government also issued large-scale subsidies.
In addition to the textile industry and IT, the real importance of the Modi government is the automotive industry, which is dominated by heavy industry. With its labor advantages and good friendships with Western countries, in 2014, India's "car city" Puna has attracted thousands of automakers to invest in factories, including Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Fiat and Ford.
Not only Pune, but also the Indian government's strong support for "Made in India", whether it is Chennai on the shore of the Bay of Bengal or the southern city of Bangalore, it has successfully attracted foreign car companies to build factories in the local investment.
Tesla has always been tough, and the intention is also based on this.
Suddenly, it seems that "Made in India" is about to replace "Made in China" to go global, but this is not the case. When the epidemic came, the world economy was in mourning, and the Indian people were surprised to find that "Made in India" could not only not be left alone, but even better than "Made in Vietnam" and "Made in Indonesia".
Compared with the 15-year period of stable development opportunities after the mainland's accession to the WTO and the strength of 207 industrial sectors in the world, India has only enjoyed a three-year development dividend period after the Sino-US trade war, and due to its development concept of quick success and quick profit, India has not established a complete industrial system from beginning to end.
According to the World Bank's latest Doing Business 2020 report, India remains one of the hardest countries in the world to do business. As for Made in India, the Financial Times commented that the name of Made in India has become loud, but it is like a "mirage", which cannot become a world factory in the true sense.
▍ India's real problems
In October 2021, India's Transport Minister Nitin Gadkarri said through foreign media such as Reuters that "the Indian government is strengthening emission standards to promote the supply of clean fuel vehicles, including electric vehicles, to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets."
It is understood that the Indian government plans to increase the share of electric vehicles in total passenger car sales to 30% by 2030, and increase the proportion of electric two-wheeler sales to 40%. At the same time, they are also pushing for mandatory sales of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) that use both gasoline and ethanol, with the goal of replacing 20 percent of gasoline-powered vehicles with FFVs by 2025.
From the current data, in 2021, India will sell 14,700 new energy vehicles, with a market penetration rate of 0.48%. In 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 2.9398 million units, with a penetration rate of 13.77%. According to this data, India still has a long way to go.
And in front of indians, whether it is the manufacture of the aircraft carrier Vikrant or the business appointments of ordinary people on a daily basis, the plan often cannot catch up with the changes.
First, look at the basics.
India is a country with a population of more than 1.3 billion and ranks among the top five in the world with an annual car sales of 3 million. However, most of them are cheap cars and the number of new energy vehicles is less than 1%. In 2020, of the 2.4 million car products sold in India, the proportion of electric vehicles is about 5,000 units, and the development of India's new energy products and the entire industrial chain is indeed relatively backward.
Take the Toyota Innova Crysta (145,400-222,100) products with the highest price in the top 20 sales volume in the Indian market, and sold 61,700 units in the whole year. For sales of 60,000 or even less, how can Tesla build a production plant in India? In the past 2021, the BBA sold more than 2.3 million vehicles in China, while only 33,000 in India, which is nearly a hundred times different from the mainland.
Looking at the entire passenger car market, when it comes to the Indian people's attention to means of transportation, the aura of the protagonist still has to give way to the two-wheeled tricycle running on the street, and even the motorcycles that play acrobatics at the military parade are stronger than the electric vehicles.
Even if Tesla is sold in India, it is an important issue whether India's local infrastructure can keep up with Tesla's supporting use. According to statistics, there are about 100 charging stations in India, which brings great limitations to long-distance travel of new energy vehicles. The Indian government plans to invest 1.39 billion yuan in the next two years to build 10,000 charging stations to promote the popularization of new energy models.
When the infrastructure facilities are built, there is another problem to be dealt with, from the most fundamental energy supply, India is a country that lacks electricity and steals electricity frequently. From the perspective of the most fundamental power equipment of each gang, there are economic differences between the various gangs, and the power equipment is relatively backward and there is no rush to improve the power supply equipment; because of the aging of the power equipment, India currently rarely uses a more modern power system, and now India's electricity bill is still the stage of manual meter reading, billing, and charging.
Second, how to protect local brands?
India's local Tata Motors has an absolutely high market share, and has raised $1 billion for the transformation of new energy, which is one of the reasons why the Indian government insists on high tariffs and has to support local brand industries.
Obviously, this process takes time.
In today's Indian market, there is almost no Indian brand that can be played in the field of new energy vehicles, which is completely different from the same level as Chinese car companies. If the tax rate is lowered for Tesla early to "open" the Indian domestic market, then the future of Indian car companies will be difficult, but it will give up the market to Tesla and other brands, becoming a dumping ground for overseas new energy vehicle companies.
Again, potential market sales risk?
Since India is a federal state, each state has its own legislative, executive and judicial powers, so the fees and tax rates can be different. This is a bit like the United States, Tesla may also be like the U.S. market, some states do not allow the use of direct sales model to sell.
Write at the end:
In the final analysis, manufacturing is the basic skill, but also the market. India seems to have a fascinated phobia of China, and everything has to be compared to us. India spent a lot of money to pull manufacturers to invest in building factories, in exchange for the withdrawal of General Motors in 2017 in order to cut costs, and about 4,000 employees of Ford will be laid off in September 2021. In addition to the American double male, Fiat and Peugeot have also withdrawn from the Indian market, while Renault and Skoda are also considering withdrawing from India.
The foundation of their own foundation is weak, and the final result will still be an empty bamboo basket. Perhaps, the Russian media person criticized it correctly, india has not seen the situation clearly until now, thinking that it is the smartest person in the world, but in fact it is just a kind of stupid arrogance.
Car totem
Senior automotive media person Mr. Twilight (Liu Xiaomian) led the creation
Tengye culture · New Media under the umbrella of NDIMedia