A battle to determine the fate of Chinese cities has quietly begun!
Ten years ago, Tesla changed the urban landscape of Fremont in the United States, and five years ago it made Shanghai, China.
Now, Musk, the world's richest man, has signaled to set up a second factory in China.
Just yesterday, foreign media reported that Tesla's second factory is still in Shanghai, and once the new factory is fully operational, Tesla will have the ability to produce up to 2 million cars per year.
As soon as the news was released, Tesla insiders denied it.
In any case, Tesla's second factory is already on the string.
Xi'an, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Yibin, Haikou and other cities have expressed the need to "measure the city's material resources and tie the hearts of enterprises".
So the question is, which city is most likely to become the next Tesla capital?
This is probably the most in-depth article analyzed on the whole network. Well worth a look.
Recently, major cities have released economic data for 2021, ranking in terms of total GDP, and the top ten are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing.
Have you found any regularity?
With the exception of Beijing, the political center, the remaining nine cities are navigable coastal (river) cities.
Convenient transportation conditions are crucial for attracting investment. Most multinational companies that come to China to invest will give priority to port cities.
But there are exceptions, Foxconn's Apple mobile phone project fell in Zhengzhou.
At that time, many cities (including a number of coastal port cities) were competing for Foxconn, why did Zhengzhou, which lived inland, stand out?
At the end of November 2010, Gou personally unveiled the mystery: "I chose Zhengzhou because I looked at the airport, the population and the location. ”
In order to win over Foxconn, Zhengzhou established the first state-level new area led by the aviation economy, the Xinzheng Comprehensive Free Trade Zone. Apple phones can be delivered to everywhere in the world in one day.
However, it is also a strategic emerging industry, and the new energy vehicle is large and bulky, and it is obviously inappropriate to use an airplane to install it. Even if the economic cost is not considered, it is not feasible from the perspective of airspace resources alone.
Take, for example, the A300-600F cargo aircraft, which can carry up to 23 LD3 containers. A container can only accommodate 1 Tesla car, and an all-cargo plane can only pull up to 23 cars.
Tesla's Shanghai factory sold 59,845 units in January. If you want to fly for transportation, you have to arrange 2600 pure cargo flights in 1 month. The record highest number of single-day cargo flights at Zhengzhou Airport is only 72.
So for Tesla, water transport is very important.
Tesla's Shanghai plant will export 160,000 units in 2021 and 40,000 units in January 2022. To transport these big guys across the ocean to Europe and the United States and other places, it is necessary to be a large ship.
Even if Musk makes strategic adjustments, the Shanghai factory is aimed at the export market, the second factory is aimed at the Chinese domestic market, all of which are sold domestically, and water transportation is also very important.
Let's take BMW Brilliance as an example.
In 2019, BMW Brilliance had eight vehicle distribution centers in China, including Shanghai, Ningbo and Guangzhou.
The headquarters in Shenyang produces a total of 530,000 vehicles, all of which are transported to these eight distribution centers and then deployed to secondary cities through road transport and other means.
Among them, to Xi'an, Chengdu and Zhengzhou is directly connected by railway.
To Ningbo, Shanghai and Guangzhou, BMW Brilliance first transports the entire vehicle from Dalian Port by rail and then by sea.
The sea journey takes more than a week, and there are several more loading and unloading than rail transport, and the time cost remains high.
Obviously, there is also smooth railway traffic to coastal cities, why do we have to be so crunchy?
There is no way, because the transportation cost of water transport is 1/2 of that of railways, 1/5 of roads, and 1/20 of aviation. More water transportation, can be less transportation costs.
Due to the depths of the inland, 78% of BMW Brilliance's vehicle logistics in 2019 needs to be transported by rail in whole or in part, becoming the enterprise with the highest proportion of rail transportation among Chinese automakers.
Its unit transportation cost is necessarily higher than that of coastal factories such as Geely Automobile and Shenzhen BYD in Ningbo.
Tesla set the first factory in Shanghai, the "first city of water transport", and I believe that the second factory will also tend to choose a city with developed water transport.
Therefore, inland cities such as Shenyang, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, and Jinan need to make greater efforts to persuade Musk to settle down, which is really difficult.
As for Wuhan and Chongqing, although there are river transport terminals, they are still in the inferior position compared with the seaport terminals.
Wuhan is the land of nine provinces, Chongqing has the largest port terminal in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the inland river transportation system is accessible in all directions. Both places have built ro-ro boat docks, which is very conducive to reducing transportation costs.
Wuhan car ro-ro terminal
Compared with general freighters, ro-ro transport vessels are extremely efficient in loading and unloading.
On the one hand, the loading and unloading cost of the terminal is small, and the loading and unloading speed can reach up to ten times that of ordinary dry cargo ships.
In addition, ro-ro cargo has a short stay time in port, which can greatly help accelerate ship turnover, improve the passage capacity of port berths, and help to achieve "door-to-door" transportation.
Wuhan Port Group has been engaged in the ro-ro business since 2006, and the volume of commercial vehicles in 2019 exceeded 1 million, becoming the first port enterprise in China to exceed one million commercial vehicle throughput.
Within the scope of Wuhan Port, there are Zhuankou Port Jiangsheng Wharf, Jiangxia Port Jinkou Wharf, Hannan Port Junshan Wharf and so on engaged in automobile ro-ro business.
Hannan Port cooperated with Chongqing Changan Automobile, and nearly 70% of the complete vehicles departed from Chongqing and transited to Hubei Province and Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and other places through Wuhan.
However, compared with the car ro-ro terminals in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chongqing are still a bit worse.
In January this year, Jiangnan Shipbuilding will "tailor-made" two ocean-going car ro-ro ships for SAIC's Anji Logistics, which has 14 decks and can carry 7600 parking spaces at one time, making it the largest car ro-ro ship in mainland China.
Minsheng's "Minfu" is the largest ro-ro ship of commercial vehicles in Chongqing and Wuhan ports, and can only carry a maximum of 1300 standard cars.
Who is more efficient, at a glance.
Of course, this is not the most critical. The main factor restricting Wuhan and Chongqing is that the Yangtze River is not as wide as the sea, and the shoreline resources of the wharf are limited.
Both cities happen to be big auto cities, with total production in 2021 approaching 2 million units. If Tesla's second factory is squeezed in again, I am afraid that the Yangtze River will be crowded out.
You know, in September 2021, Tesla held a shareholders' meeting in Texas, usa, and Chairman Robin Dholm has set up a flag saying, "By 2030, Tesla's global sales will reach 20 million vehicles."
Such a big plan, the second factory must be 1 million vehicles to start. The Ro-Ro dock in Wuhan Chongqing may be unbearable.
In addition to transportation, we also have to consider the industrial base.
An airplane has millions of parts, a car has more than 20,000 parts, no car manufacturer can produce all the parts alone, there must be a complete production chain as a support.
Vehicle projects must fall in cities with supply chain foundations in order to save investment costs.
Or take BMW Brilliance as an example.
In 2019, bmw brilliance had 394 cooperative suppliers in China, 70 headquarters in Shenyang, and only 33% of the 131 in the entire northeast region.
This means that nearly 70% of the suppliers of components are located outside the northeast and need to be deployed across thousands of kilometers.
BMW Brilliance partner supplier distribution map
In the same year, BMW Brilliance's purchase volume in China was 49.7 billion yuan.
If calculated according to the 60% proportion of Shenyang suppliers in BMW Brilliance's total procurement in 2018, Shenyang's local parts manufacturers have probably received orders of 29.8 billion yuan, and the remaining nearly 20 billion yuan is scattered throughout the country.
Among them, the Yangtze River Delta is the most, because the suppliers in the Yangtze River Delta reached as many as 170, accounting for more than 43%.
So, why do Shenyang car manufacturers travel thousands of miles to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai to buy parts?
The answer is simple, because the commanding heights of China's auto industry are in the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area, where the industrial chain is the most perfect.
According to the statistics of "New Materials Online", most of China's automotive electronics companies are concentrated in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Guangdong, and the four provinces account for more than half.
Looking at another chart, most of the popular listed companies in the new energy automobile industry are also from the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area.
The new energy automobile industry in the central and western regions has a low starting point, slow development and poor technology.
I once went to a western provincial capital city to investigate, a friend of the provincial government office told me that there have long been vehicle factory projects in the local area, and I also want to build a tire factory, but the cost is higher than that of other places, and finally purchased from the Yangtze River Delta.
As the world's leading new energy vehicle company, Tesla's technical requirements for spare parts companies will definitely not be lower than or even higher than traditional luxury car companies such as BMW Brilliance.
If Musk sets up factories in cities with a weak foundation in the automobile industry, such as Haikou and Yibin, it is equivalent to re-painting on a blank piece of paper, and it will take at least several years to improve the industrial chain and achieve mass production.
However, Musk can't wait.
The lack of capacity is Tesla's fatal injury.
Chinese consumers need to book at least 12-16 weeks in advance to buy a Tesla Model 3.
Because the current capacity limit of Tesla's Shanghai factory is 500,000 vehicles, and the sales volume in January this year has reached 59,845 units, which is already overloaded.
The biggest ups and downs in the fate of the new energy automobile circle is WM Motors, which was originally a seed player born with a golden key, but missed the development opportunity because of the location in Wenzhou.
Wenzhou's WM vehicle manufacturing project supply chain localization level is not high, the core components are only partly involved in a local battery supply company of Ruipu New Energy, and other local suppliers in Wenzhou are mostly substitute auto parts, sensors and other small accessories.
In the same way, Jinan and Xi'an have no small obstacles in trying to win Tesla over.
Although they produce hundreds of thousands of cars every year, they are basically trucks and fuel vehicles, and new energy vehicles are pitifully few and lack relevant genes.
According to public information, the "City Record Think Tank" found about 100 major suppliers of Tesla new energy vehicles in Shanghai. Careful analysis will find that most of these suppliers have set up production bases in the Yangtze River Delta. They are like a sky full of stars, guarding Tesla's bright moon.
At the same time, it also forms a moat. Let all electric vehicle projects that are far away from industrial clusters must first find a good recipe for upstream and downstream support.
There are not many cities that can solve this problem.
The quality of life at the project location is also a key factor affecting Tesla's layout.
For example. The world knows that the headquarters of the Ningde era is in Ningde.
But what is less known is that Zeng Yuqun's first stop in entrepreneurship was atL Company in Dongguan. Within a few years, the company was a rising star in the battery industry.
The news of Zeng Yuqun's success in starting a business soon spread throughout Ningde. Since 2004, the leaders of Ningde City have mobilized all their connections to persuade Zeng Yuqun to return to his hometown, almost breaking the threshold of the Zeng family.
Zeng Yuqun was very touched, but he did not agree for a long time, because Ningde at that time was poor and broken, the transportation was very backward, the education and medical resources were insufficient, and there was not even a decent hotel.
Until 2007, Ningde City basically made up for the shortcomings of development and promised to provide five-star all-round services for ATL company, and the Chinese employees of ATL company reluctantly agreed, but the Japanese major shareholders still opposed. Zeng Yuqun used the collective resignation and the threat of starting a new stove to force the Japanese major shareholders to compromise.
Joint ventures like ATL are still so tossed, so if a wholly foreign-owned enterprise such as Tesla's second factory is located far from the city center and the living facilities are not perfect, the obstacles encountered will certainly be more fierce.
Tesla's foreign executives must not tolerate the "earthy taste" of remote townships. They need international airports, international schools and American coffee, which are not available in small places.
The industrial space in many cities cannot meet Tesla's requirements.
Some industrial parks are too remote and there is nothing around. Like when Huaxing Optoelectronics settled in Wuhan, it ran to the easternmost part of the Optics Valley, and it was almost bordering Ezhou.
In order to meet the needs of thousands of employees, Huaxing Optoelectronics had to build another football field, shopping mall, dormitory building and so on opposite the factory. For Tesla, who is responsible for this huge cost?
Some are like Shenzhen, although the conditions are excellent in all aspects, but the industrial land has been very tight:
Shenzhen's total land area is only 1997.47 square kilometers, which is one-third of Shanghai, one-quarter of Guangzhou, and one-eighth of Beijing.
Even Huawei, China's best technology company, has complained that housing prices in Shenzhen are too high, moving its production base and research and development department elsewhere.
Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory covers an area of 860,000 square meters, the area of the second factory will certainly not be lower than this number, "inch of land" Shenzhen for a time to come up with such a large piece of land is estimated to be a little difficult.
Take Shenzhen's local car company BYD, which has built or plans to build 17 production bases, with a total production capacity of far more than 400GWh, while the production capacity of the Shenzhen Pingshan base is only 14GWh.
On the whole, Guangzhou may best meet Tesla's factory construction needs.
First of all, Guangzhou is one of the three comprehensive transportation hubs in the country, with both river transportation and maritime advantages.
Guangzhou Port ranks fourth in the world in terms of container throughput, and guangzhou port group's commodity vehicle passing capacity is expected to exceed 2 million. In terms of land transportation, Guangzhou is the largest railway and road hub in South China.
If Tesla's second factory falls in Guangzhou, whether it is a domestic trade route or an export ocean, it will not matter.
Secondly, Guangzhou is China's largest automobile production base, with a total vehicle production volume of 2.9664 million units in 2021.
In the field of new energy vehicles, Guangzhou has both vehicle brands such as Xiaopeng Automobile and GAC E-An, as well as automotive unicorns such as Xiaoma Zhixing and Wenyuan Zhixing. Guangzhou has more than 3,000 public charging piles and 135 autonomous driving test roads.
Third, the Greater Bay Area is China's second largest new energy consumer market, and setting up factories here can save transportation costs and adjust production plans in a timely manner according to market demand.
The Greater Bay Area has established an industrial chain covering key materials, three-electric systems, various parts and components and vehicle production, and it is possible to build a Tesla without going out of the province.
In addition, Guangzhou's business environment ranks first in the country, with high administrative efficiency, good infrastructure facilities, strong educational resources, and third in the country in terms of medical level, which is favored by high-end talents.
As of December 2020, Guangzhou has 256 headquarters or branches of Fortune 500 companies, which can meet the work and life needs of Tesla's overseas executives.
Many people do not know that Musk originally wanted to set up the first factory in Nansha, Guangzhou, but then was cut off by Shanghai.
At that time, the electric vehicle factory that Nansha District hoped to introduce would be located in whole or part of the R&D, operation and other departments in the local area, but Tesla set up more production plants in China than independent research and development.
On the issue of equity, Nansha District and Tesla also have large differences.
Shanghai, on the other hand, gave the green light, set no restrictions, and gave back a lot of super preferential policies: Tesla built a factory, the price is only one-tenth of the market price, Tesla received a loan of 18.5 billion yuan from the Shanghai syndicate, the interest rate is only 3.9%, far lower than the general commercial loan.
Later, Guangzhou spent a lot of effort on Evergrande Automobile and Baoneng Automobile projects. Nowadays, Evergrande's production base in Nansha District has been semi-shelved, and if the old materials are used, it is not a good thing.
The current situation of Evergrande Nansha Automobile Base (Source: @Electric Bang)
According to the data of compulsory traffic insurance, in 2020, there will be 139,000 Teslas on the plate, of which 23.7%, 18.5%, 12.4% and 10.2% will be in Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Beijing, respectively, totaling 64.7%.
From a market point of view, most of Tesla's consumers are in the eastern coastal area, and the second factory prefers a harbor city such as Guangzhou, which is more advantageous.
Of course, we cannot ignore China's peculiarities.
Enterprises settled in places where they are born insufficient will indeed cause slow production efficiency and high costs.
However, attracting investment and investment is the "sincerity" of local governments, and how much tax, land and subsidy concessions can be put forward.
As long as the local concessions are large enough to cover the extra costs and inconveniences, then the enterprise will also make a profit in a certain period of time.
In a word, even if the fiscal revenue and tax base will be greatly affected, only local governments will do whatever they want. Then, the laws of the natural market economy may also be detoured and shelved
More than a decade ago, Beijing, Chongqing, Wuxi, Suzhou, Xi'an and other cities all grabbed Samsung Electronics' tens of billions of semiconductor projects. At that time, Xi'an's GDP was only 324.1 billion yuan, which was less than a fraction of Beijing's.
In order to defeat strong competitors, leaders at the shaanxi and xi'an levels have done everything in their power.
The then secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee said that he would use the strength of the whole province to introduce the project. The governor personally went to South Korea to conduct in-depth and frank discussions with Samsung executives. Shaanxi Province has established a new idea of "provincial and municipal linkage, provincial-oriented, and determined to win".
In the process of negotiations, Samsung gave Xi'an a lot of problems.
On December 22, 2011, Samsung sent its first questionnaire to Xi'an. On this long volume of more than 300 questions, it deals with hydrology, geography, geology, water quality, natural disasters and other issues before site selection. Samsung also announced the "handover" date - two days later.
After reporting to the superiors, the Xi'an High-tech Zone responded quickly, quickly organized the elite generals of seven departments to answer these questions one by one, and quickly translated them into Korean and sent them back to Samsung.
Two days later, Samsung did send a technical team to conduct a site inspection of the materials provided by Xi'an.
In order to "catch up" with Samsung, Xi'an gave everything and unreservedly:
Promise financial subsidies to subsidize 30% of the investment amount!
The 1.3 million square meters of factory building required for the project was built by Xi'an City!
Subsidize water, electricity, greening, logistics costs!
Income tax collection is fully waived for the first ten years, and half the amount is levied in the next ten years!
At the same time, transportation infrastructure such as highways and subway lines 6 will be built for the Samsung project!
Sincerely, the golden stone is open. In March 2012, Samsung Electronics officially announced its settlement in Xi'an. After the signing of the contract, Xi'an took only 3 months to smoothly demolish and properly resettle 7 administrative villages, involving more than 10,000 people from 4,473 households.
The investment legend of "Xi'an-Samsung" has also been staged in Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hefei and other cities.
The most well-known is Hefei, which has been neglected for a long time in history, and the father does not love the mother, but dares to bet all his wealth to key projects (China University of Science and Technology, BOE, Changxin Storage, Weilai Automobile), and the GDP ranking has progressed from more than 90 to 19th, achieving the reputation of "the most cattle venture capital city".
Back to Tesla's second factory project.
Although Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Jinan, Haikou and other cities have shortcomings in some aspects such as transportation location, industrial support and business environment, they may not have no hope of winning.
The key lies in the place, whether it can come up with the sincerity that makes people blush and "tremble and be frightened".
If it competes with the intensity of the offer, Guangzhou's win is greater.
Becoming the next "Tesla Capital" is crucial for the industrial upgrading of any city.
Before the introduction of Tesla, Shanghai's new energy automobile industry had been hanging by Shenzhen.
In 2019, shenzhen car company BYD's annual sales volume was 229506 units, while Shanghai's annual output was only 83,000 units, which was not in the order of magnitude at all.
After the introduction of Tesla's complete vehicle project, Shanghai's new energy vehicle production soared to 630,000 units, replacing Shenzhen as "China's first new energy vehicle city" in just two years.
In 2021, Tesla set a record delivery of about 936,200 vehicles.
Among them, the Shanghai Gigafactory delivered a total of 484,000 vehicles, an increase of 235% year-on-year, accounting for 51.7% of Tesla's annual total global deliveries, and single-handedly supported the "half of the sky" of the global market.
In 2021, the output value of new energy vehicles in Shanghai will exceed 160 billion yuan, and Tesla's Shanghai factory will contribute 150 billion yuan.
Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory has reached a localization rate of more than 90% of parts.
Many auto parts companies have formed Tesla's "4-hour circle of friends" in Suzhou, Ningbo, Nantong, Wuxi, Shaoxing, Taizhou, Nanjing, Changzhou and other places, forming a large-scale industrial cluster. Invisibly strengthens Shanghai's leading position in the Yangtze River Delta.
Put to the country and even the world, Tesla Gigafactory has become a golden signboard in Shanghai.
Driven by Tesla, China's battery, motor, electronic control and auto parts suppliers have also gone to the world stage, establishing competitive advantages in many fields, and constantly climbing to the high end of the value chain, so that the international market has a new understanding of Shanghai intelligent manufacturing and Chinese manufacturing.
Therefore, Shanghai saved Tesla, and Tesla also made Shanghai.
Shanghai's great success has made major cities in China understand that tesla gigafactory is a good project that is rare in a century and a key move to change the fate of the city.
This reminds me of family marriages during the Republic of China. When Miss Song and Miss Second became the helpers of Mr. Kong and Premier Sun respectively, the prestige of the Song family increased day by day, and the third miss, who was not yet married, became the "first goddess of the Republic of China". Even Mr. Jiang, who was in power all over the world, fell under her pomegranate skirt.
It can be predicted that the next Tesla second factory battle must be extremely fierce and extremely cruel.
Its result is enough to affect the domestic urban economic pattern.