A few days ago, the news that Tesla's second factory in China "will settle in Shenyang, Liaoning Province" has once again aroused widespread concern. The projects of top enterprises have always been an important force relied on by major cities to promote industrial development. Tesla's development level in the new energy automobile industry is beyond doubt, and the huge economic benefits and industrial chain chain chain brought by its Shanghai gigafactory make it imperative for more cities to have a potential Tesla second gigafactory in China.
Among the 9 cities that have been rumored to have settled in the "scandal", Qingdao, which once missed Tesla's first gigafactory in China, can it get its wish this time?
Qilu Financial Research Institute No. 179
Written by Cheng Ruolan
Reviewer/Zhuang completed
The location of tesla factory is in doubt
Recently, a public report in the field of new energy vehicles entered the public eye: "Liaoning Release" push article "Shenyang Dadong District "five grasps" at the same time, striving to be the vanguard of revitalization and development", the article mentioned that it is necessary to "combine the urban renewal of the civil official area, open up the industrial development space, and lay the foundation for the landing of major new energy vehicle projects such as Tesla." ”
Combined with Shenyang's achievements and plans in automobiles, many people interpret this expression as "Shenyang may become the landing city of Tesla's second factory in China".
As an important central city and advanced equipment manufacturing base in northeast China, Shenyang, which has painstakingly operated in the construction of "Automobile City", has a relatively complete automobile industry system and does have the potential to attract Tesla to settle in.
At the same time, in recent years, Shenyang will develop new energy intelligent networked vehicles as the main direction of attack, launched the "China (Shenyang) Intelligent Connected Vehicle International Conference" brand, and seized the opportunities for the development of the intelligent networked automobile industry.
In the "gossip candidate" Shenyang Dadong District, the site of Tesla's second factory, it has successively landed the first Tesla delivery service center in Northeast China, Huawei's intelligent networked vehicle industry cloud, intelligent network vehicle test demonstration area and other key industrial chain projects. In October 2021, the leadership team of the district also visited the Tesla headquarters in Beijing to discuss and exchange views on the future layout planning and sales of the Tesla Northeast headquarters project in the Great East District.
Despite the superior conditions, the news that "Tesla's second factory will be located in Shenyang" was quickly falsified. On February 14, Tesla China responded that the above site selection statement was false news. Subsequently, the relevant content released by Liaoning was also corrected.
In fact, Shenyang is not the first city to be rumored to be the "site of Tesla's second factory". Previously, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Yibin, Chongqing, Hefei, Wuhan, Xi'an 8 cities have been involved in the "scandal" of Tesla's second factory project.
At the end of October 2021, tesla will set up a second gigafactory in China. Dan Bin, chairman of Shenzhen Oriental Harbor Investment Management Co., Ltd., weibo shows that Tesla's second factory may be located in Qingdao. At the same time, it has been reported that the relevant departments in Qingdao have contacted the senior management of Tesla China and communicated that they will strive to settle the project in Qingdao.
As with the "settled in Shenyang" incident, shortly after the news came out, Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla's external affairs, said on Weibo that the information on the site of Tesla's second factory on the Internet was not true, but people's analysis of the matter did not stop, and the comment area also became a place for netizens to recommend landing cities and share reasons around the world.
The rumors were quick to refute, but the discussions did not stop. The reason is that the economic benefits and resource agglomeration effect brought by Tesla are too tempting.
Shanghai and Tesla's mutual achievements
In its annual earnings report, Tesla called 2021 the year of its "major breakthrough." According to the data, in 2021, Tesla's global deliveries reached 936,200 units, a new high, an increase of 87% over 2020.
Among them, Tesla's first super factory in China, the Shanghai Gigafactory (hereinafter referred to as the "Shanghai Factory"), contributed 51.7% of the delivery volume: in 2021, the Shanghai plant delivered a total of 484,100 vehicles, an increase of 235% over the initial production in 2020.
At the same time, this figure shows that the Shanghai factory already has a production level close to Tesla's global delivery volume (499,600) in 2020.
Tesla's gigafactories have annual production capacity
The surge in deliveries at the Shanghai factory is reflected in Tesla's sharply improved performance last year. According to tesla's 10-K annual report, last year, Tesla's sales revenue in the Chinese market reached $13.844 billion, an increase of 107.80% year-on-year, accounting for 25.72% of its global revenue.
When the Shanghai factory achieved a new record of delivery volume and performance for Tesla, Tesla also brought considerable economic benefits to Shanghai. In 2021, the output value of Shanghai's new energy automobile industry has exceeded 160 billion yuan, doubling compared with 2020. Among them, the Lingang New Area, where the Shanghai factory is located, has contributed more than 150 billion yuan.
According to the VAM agreement signed by Tesla and Shanghai, Tesla's annual tax payment must reach 2.23 billion yuan from the end of 2023. From this point of view, Tesla's output value and tax contribution to Shanghai will continue to remain at a high level.
Behind this intuitive economic data is the overall upgrade of Shanghai's new energy automobile industry chain.
At present, the localization rate of parts in the Shanghai plant has exceeded 90%. The basis of this data is that under the influence of the attraction of Tesla, an industry giant, and the frequent investment promotion actions in Lingang New Area in recent years, many upstream and downstream enterprises in the new energy automobile industry chain in Shanghai and neighboring cities have been continuously gathered.
Recently, a number of new energy industry projects such as the Ningde Times Industrial Project (Ruiting Battery Base Project) have started construction in Lingang New Area. Such upstream supplier enterprises have taken root successively, providing impetus for the development and expansion of the industry in and around Shanghai, and even the upgrading of the regional economic level.
At the same time, Tesla provides Shanghai with a strong attraction for innovative elements such as gathering talents.
Since March 2021, Tesla has held job fairs in 15 cities, including Hefei, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, to carry out large-scale recruitment for 30 types of positions in seven departments of the Shanghai factory. Media reports show that Tesla's leading position in the industry and preferential treatment have made many job seekers flock to it, including many outstanding talents in the automotive industry.
In October 2021, Tesla Shanghai R&D and Innovation Center was completed. It is reported that the center is based on the development of complete vehicles, including software, hardware, electronics, materials, power and energy factory teams, and is Tesla's first overseas research and development center. By giving full play to the role of localized talent training and industrial research and development in line with international standards, the center will become a powerful magnet for Shanghai to gather talents in new energy vehicle modules such as vehicles, charging equipment, and energy products.
The win-win situation between Shanghai and Tesla in 2021 has obviously become the driving force for major cities to compete for Tesla's second factory in China.
In a earnings call and investor Q&A on January 27, Tesla founder Elon Musk said that Tesla is currently launching a new factory site selection, or will release the relevant information at the end of this year.
So, in the context of the domestic multi-city competition, can Qingdao, which has passed by, get its wish?
Compete for a second plant
Where are the opportunities in Qingdao?
The Shanghai factory was once called "the fastest building he has ever seen." From the groundbreaking of the project on January 7, 2019, to the delivery of the first Model 3 on December 30, 2019, the Shanghai plant created the "Shanghai Speed" that took only 11 months.
In terms of speeding up project construction and increasing efficiency, Qingdao will issue relevant documents in 2021, streamline the list of main approval services for engineering construction projects to 48 items, and introduce a number of measures such as optimization of the approval process of engineering construction projects and digital remote approval to facilitate market players and improve the efficiency of project landing.
On February 8, the Weichai Qingdao project started construction less than 40 days after signing the contract, which reflects the good "Qingdao speed" and vividly reflects the practical results of Qingdao's clear "focus on effective needs, advocate more work and less talk". From this point of view, Qingdao is fully capable of bringing qualitative gains to Tesla, which urgently needs new factories to put into production to alleviate the problem of insufficient production capacity.
In order to achieve the goal of "reducing costs and improving quality and efficiency", which is the concern of all enterprises in the development of enterprises, the development of the local supply chain will also become one of the key factors considered by Tesla when selecting the site.
When analyzing the performance in 2021, Tesla proposed that localized production is an important part of reducing costs and improving the stability of global supply chains. At the same time, Tesla also said that the stability of the supply chain is also an important factor affecting the growth rate of delivery. Previously, the actual delivery volume of Tesla factories was always lower than the design capacity, and the supply chain was one of the main constraints.
In the process of the development of the new energy automobile industry, Qingdao has introduced five vehicle enterprises such as SAIC-GM-Wuling, Chery and BAIC, and has a layout in the West Coast New Area, Jimo and Pingdu. These projects have taken root and have extended a considerable automotive industry chain in Qingdao.
In addition, chip and panel industry leaders such as Xinen and BOE have landed projects in Qingdao. At the same time, with the further development of the Qingdao Metropolitan Circle and the Jiaodong Economic Circle, Shandong, which has a complete range of industries, will also become the pillar of Qingdao's supply capacity for the development of the new energy automobile industry. For Tesla, these advantages of Qingdao's local supply chain are also extremely attractive.
In fact, from the perspective of export sales, in order to achieve "cost reduction and efficiency increase", Qingdao's excellent geographical location is also one of the advantages of competing with Tesla's second factory.
Qingdao has a natural port - Qingdao Port, and its cargo throughput and container throughput are at the forefront of the country. According to the "International Shipping Hub Competitiveness Index - Northeast Asia Report (2021)", Qingdao Port's competitiveness ranks first among the ports in Northeast Asia.
With the expansion of favorable policy effects such as the SCO Demonstration Zone and the official entry into force of the RCEP Agreement, Qingdao's export volume to overseas markets will be further enhanced. This is exactly what Tesla, which is suffering from the problem of "short supply", urgently needs it.
However, when affirming Qingdao's various advantages, people should also focus on the shortcomings that Qingdao still needs to overcome and extend the shortcomings on the "wooden barrel".
As the price of automobiles becomes more reasonable, in order to effectively reduce costs, companies always tend to shorten the distance between the production end and the target customer. If there is sufficient market demand in the local and neighboring cities of the factory, the sales and marketing of products can be completed in a short distance, thereby controlling costs.
In this regard, Qingdao has certain disadvantages. In the national new energy vehicle sales ranking according to the number of new car traffic insurance purchases, Qingdao, which has a cumulative sales volume of 33,056 vehicles in 2021, ranks only 21st. However, from the perspective of its growth rate of 114.72%, activating effective demand and continuing to expand the market scale will be the first problems to be considered by Qingdao when competing for Tesla's new factory.
At the same time, Qingdao should also take the initiative to turn from a "manufacturing base" to a "research and development base". Until Huaren Express announced in January this year to build a global R&D technology center in Qingdao, Qingdao's new energy automobile industry has always been in a state of "strong manufacturing, weak research and development", with weak talent gathering, weak technological upgrading power, and slow development process of high-end industrial chain.
Whether it is to compete for Tesla's second factory or to achieve the fundamental goal of high-quality development of the new energy automobile industry, Qingdao needs to focus on effective demand and enhance the overall "scientific and technological gold content" of the industry through investment attraction and training of local scientific research forces.
Phoenix Network Qingdao original
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