Two months ago, when the epidemic first started, Shanghai's automotive industry suffered "silence", and the upstream and downstream industrial chains were all implicated. Previously, Tesla, SAIC Volkswagen and other OEMs and parts suppliers were forced to suspend production, and the suspension time was also extended many times.
However, some people are hindered by the way forward, and some people are trapped in the situation, just recently, the Association of Automobiles released the march car sales data. Among them, the wholesale sales of Tesla, a leading new energy enterprise, in March were 65,814 vehicles (of which 60 were exported), an increase of 85% year-on-year. This is the second time that Tesla has achieved monthly sales of more than 50,000 units for seven consecutive months, and the second time it has broken through 60,000 units.
In addition to Tesla's eye-catching performance in March in China, global sales in the first quarter also performed well. According to data released by Tesla, in the first quarter of this year, the people-friendly model Model 3 and Model Y delivered 295,324 units, and the Model S and Model X delivered a total of 14,724 units in the first quarter. Among them, Tesla's cumulative sales in China exceeded 180,000 units, reaching the market performance of 182,174 units, once again setting a quarterly sales record.
Sales in the first quarter of 2022
Sales in the first quarter of 2021
From the data point of view, compared with the 308,600 vehicles delivered in the fourth quarter of last year, Tesla deliveries in the first quarter increased by 0.47%, although the growth is not obvious, but the ability to achieve a small increase in the face of limited production capacity affected by the epidemic also reflects the strong demand of the market consumer group and the charm of brand products. If compared with the 184,800 vehicles delivered in the first quarter of 2021, the judgment is high, the increase is 68%, and the year-on-year growth momentum is strong.
Tesla's good sales reflect the popularity of the entire new energy market. The rising penetration rate is even more verified by the data of the Association of Automobiles, and the data of the Association shows that in the just-concluded March, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles was as high as 28.2%, an increase of 17.6 percentage points from the 10.6% penetration rate in March 2021.
The digital factory helped Tesla's sales soar
Behind the high delivery volume, Tesla mainly relies on the Super Factory in Asia and Europe, including California, Shanghai, Berlin and other factories. Although the Shanghai factory continued to shut down due to the epidemic in March this year, the official delivery of Tesla's Berlin factory also helped Tesla improve its performance and completed multiple orders in Europe. According to the current market performance, the production capacity of the Berlin plant, which is officially put into operation, will be further increased, and if the Shanghai plant resumes production, coupled with the production capacity after the opening of the Texas plant on April 7 and the capacity of the existing vehicle manufacturing plant, the second quarter may continue to break through.
Texas plant
For Tesla, 2022 is the year to expand production. 2023 will be a big year for Tesla's products. Auto Network Review learned that after the grand opening of the Texas gigafactory Cyber Rodeo, Tesla officially delivered the first model Y production car produced by the factory with 4680 batteries. At the same time, Musk also promised that in the future, the capacity of each super factory will be doubled several times, achieving the goal of mass production of 20 million in 2030.
As Tesla's largest factory, Shanghai Gigafactory has a production capacity of more than 0.5 per unit of construction area, which is much higher than Toyota 0.2, which is currently the best at lean production among car companies. The plant accounted for 51.7 percent of Tesla's total deliveries in 2021, surpassing the Fremont, Calif., plant. According to public information, the Shanghai plant is expanding the scale of parts production, and is expected to increase weekly production to 22,000 units, that is, 1.1 million units per year. If it goes well, Tesla China's annual production in 2022 will be 2.3 times that of last year. The Berlin plant and the Texas plant have an annual production capacity of 500,000 units, which will be rapidly increased to 1 million units in the future. It is reported that the Berlin plant only takes 45 seconds to produce a Model Y body, and the whole vehicle takes only 10 hours, compared with 30 hours for Volkswagen to produce an ID.3. At the end of January 2022, Musk revealed that he will announce the location of Tesla's fifth factory in the world during the year, and will also manufacture its models with high efficiency and high production.
Auto Network Review: Tesla is up to date and always at the forefront
Tesla's new high delivery volume, the gigafactory has undoubtedly made a significant contribution. In response to the outbreak of cluster epidemics in many places, various localities have taken multiple measures to strengthen epidemic prevention and control, Tesla has also responded to the times, launched a self-service pick-up service in many places, shortened the time of the traditional process of 1-2 hours to the fastest 20 minutes to complete the pick-up process, the entire pick-up process avoids the risk of contact with other car owners and Tesla staff, and strives to achieve "no waiting" and "zero contact" in the delivery link.
At the same time, Tesla has also expanded and improved a series of cloud services, including a series of people-friendly services such as live car broadcasting, car sales, online booking, Q&A, etc., to ensure that consumers can be met with high quality during the epidemic, which is also one of the factors that Tesla's sales have increased compared with other new energy vehicle companies.
Under the unavoidable impact of the epidemic, the consumer desire has weakened, and it has once again ushered in a positive situation under Tesla's shrewd online layout. The first quarter can be regarded as a good start for the "20 million vehicles" target, tesla as long as it maintains the existing capacity growth efficiency, 2023 products to launch more competitive products, early to seize the market, this goal is not difficult to achieve.