Tesla, the upcoming new model, was leaked by drawings in the official video.
In Tesla's newly released video, a new model appeared, obviously not Model 3 and Model Y, but a bit like the model on Tesla's recruitment poster a few years ago.
Musk has previously made it clear that the next to build a new car, the cost and price will be half of the lowest price Model 3 currently on sale, market analysis estimates: 25,000 US dollars (about 170,000 yuan), impact 100,000-200,000 gears.
And all indications are that this is likely to be one: a small steel cannon.
That's right, an A-class coupe like the Volkswagen Golf.
Tesla "drawings leaked"
Recently, Tesla held the opening event of the new engineering headquarters. In the opening celebration video, a closer look at the drawings in front of the vehicle designers shows that some of them are Model 3 and Model Y, but some are clearly not.
These vehicles look smaller than the Model 3 and Model Y, like compact electric cars.
And two of the drawings are similar to the models on Tesla's posters recruiting design talents in China in previous years.
If nothing else, this is likely to be a "small steel cannon" that Musk mentioned that costs half the cost of the Model 3.
The small steel cannon first appeared at Tesla Battery Day in 2020, when Tesla released the new 4680 type electrodeless battery.
When talking about what the new battery architecture can achieve, Musk said he wants to build a "compelling electric car" that could cost $25,000 "and achieve full self-driving."
However, because Musk later believed that Tesla's priority should be to achieve full self-driving, the overall focus of the work was on the FSD system, and the new model development plan was shelved.
Although Tesla later recruited designers in China to form a design team, a smaller size car appeared on the recruitment poster, and people speculated that this was the cheaper Tesla.
But how the Chinese design team recruited, the Tesla design center to settle in Beijing has no follow-up, and the Tesla small steel cannon has faded out of people's vision.
However, Musk's new Tesla model, which is half as cheap as the Model 3, revealed at this year's earnings conference, and now that the drawing has reappeared, may mean that Tesla has put the launch of the "small steel cannon" on the agenda again.
Because in a few days, it will be Tesla's annual shareholder day.
Musk has spoiled that this shareholder day will "set off the third chapter of Tesla."
What kind of car
First of all, from the appearance rendered by the outside world, the wheelbase of the small steel gun is shorter than that of the Model 3, and it should be a hatchback electric vehicle.
△ There have been renderings made by foreign media
According to the selling price, the small steel cannon will most likely also use integrated die-casting technology, and is equipped with Tesla 4680 batteries, with a range of no less than 321 kilometers (200 miles).
Although Musk has promised that the car will "achieve full self-driving", according to the current progress of the FSD Beta, it will still be some time before it can be realized.
However, the small steel cannon will definitely use HW4.0 (or a newer version), 7 cameras and 1 millimeter-wave radar for sensors, as well as new FSD autonomous driving chips, new on-board computers, brake systems, and so on.
And at the upcoming Tesla investor day, Musk will also release a new generation of car platform, and the small steel cannon is likely to be the first car of this platform.
Even if it is not an identical "small steel cannon" in the end, it is time for Tesla to launch a cheaper, more mass-market, and more capable model.
Or to put it another way: had to.
Why is such a car needed
As we all know, Tesla's first car was the Roadster.
This two-door sports car has a range of 393km, zero hundred acceleration up to 3.7s, and the price ranges from $98,950 to $128,500, about 686,000-891,000 yuan - at that time, it was not sold to China, it could only be imported by pure transshipment, and it could be bought basically millions at home.
This car not only helped Musk verify Tesla's pure electric technology, but also opened up the brand and fame, and associated Tesla with "luxury" and "cool", which can be said to have laid the tone for Tesla, and the brand significance is greater than the significance of mass production.
It also affected new car players such as NIO later - if you want to target luxury brands, the first car must be expensive.
The success of Roadster helped Tesla complete the proof of technology model to business model, and soon Musk launched an IPO, using public funds to build factories that can produce and deliver production models.
Still from expensive to cheap, from luxury to Volkswagen.
Tesla first launched Model S, the first batch of signed versions priced from 96,570 US dollars, about 672,000 yuan; later launched Model X, the signed version priced from 132,000 US dollars, about 918,000 yuan.
Although both models have since launched cheaper production versions, the price is not less than 55,000 US dollars, about 383,000 yuan.
At this time, Tesla mainly sold luxury electric vehicles and did not target the mass market. On the one hand, Tesla's manufacturing capacity needs to have an overall climbing cycle, on the other hand, in the early stage of pure electric, it is more important to be able to match the corresponding charging infrastructure setting network.
But the model for the mass market is actually being prepared from the beginning, because the law of the model naming method is "SEXY" - only the trademark of Model E is in the hands of Ford, and finally Musk moved wisely, turned the E head, and there was Model 3.
After the official announcement of Model 3 is basically that after the delivery of Model S, Musk openly stated that Tesla is planning to launch an electric car that costs less than $30,000 (about 208,000 yuan) to make it affordable for more people.
As a result, Model 3 went on sale in 2017, with a range of 350km and a starting price of 35,000 US dollars, about 243,000 yuan.
If the Model 3 corresponds to the mass-market version of Model S, then the Model Y launched later corresponds to Model X, and the starting price of Model Y is $48,990, about 340,000 yuan.
So for people who pay attention to Musk and Tesla, Tesla's previous product strategy is basically a clear card.
First of all, a brand does all products, regardless of luxury brands or mass market brands, to a certain extent, to achieve the decoupling of brand tonality and "selling price", which is also where Musk's car building is considered quite remarkable.
In other car manufacturers, luxury necessarily means having to sell high.
But Musk successfully associated Tesla with the impression of cool, advanced and different, and in the brand research of the global market, Tesla and Mercedes-Benz BMW ranked in the same brand stall - accounting for the majority of sales is the 200,000 Model 3? Unimportant.
The second is the gradient descent strategy at the price level of large categories of products. In the field of passenger cars, from the launch of the S and X, it is clear that there will be new models in lower price ranges, and even the models that have been released will try to reduce the price as much as possible when the production capacity and cost are suitable - at least for the Model 3 and Y.
The reason for this is simple: lower prices can lead to bigger sales, drive bigger scale, and bigger scale can have bigger stories to tell.
What makes Tesla's story unique is that Musk didn't put it in the way car companies are perceived and valued from the start.
What is Tesla? It is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy by building cars and replace fuel vehicles with electric vehicles, which is why Tesla will continue to lower the price of Model 3 and Y.
How should Tesla be recognized and valued? Tesla's car is just a container for Musk to achieve general artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, and the more delivered, the larger the scale of the road and the data it has, the greater Tesla's future potential.
This is also why Tesla, which has not been the first in the automotive field in terms of deliveries, has long been the sum of the market capitalization of other top ten delivery companies and 2-10 car companies in terms of market capitalization.
As many people say, Musk's most expensive thing is - cognition.
But even so, Tesla's current models on sale have basically reached a bottleneck.
This year, Tesla adjusted the global price of Model 3 and Model Y, although later Model Y models rose slightly, but combined with the existing four models, the overall coverage range is still more than 200,000 yuan.
If today's Tesla wants to expand its size again, it will have to consider launching cheaper models.
For Tesla, it may be easier to scale up with a smaller electric car than to drop the price of the Model 3 below 200,000.
The size is smaller, the cost is more controllable, and the price can also enter the range of about 150,000 - the current price range of the top model in China's new energy market.
And as I just said, Tesla's automatic driving route is iterated from L2 to L4, which relies on massive data by "shadow mode", which requires thousands of Tesla owners to go on the road and crowdsourcing to achieve.
Therefore, the further volume of the model is something that will definitely happen.
On the other hand, in addition to Tesla's internal drive, cheaper mass-market models are also necessary for Tesla to face an increasingly fierce external environment.
In the global market, Tesla can occupy a leading position in North America, Europe and other places, but in China, Tesla has experienced unprecedented competitive pressure.
Wei Xiaoli and other new forces share some cake, and more importantly, BYD is no longer the opponent who makes Musk laugh.
In 2022, BYD will top the world's first throne in new energy vehicles.
Among them, the two models on sale have left Model 3 and Y, which have shown strong cost-effective competitiveness, at a loss.
One is the BYD Song family, priced at 14.08-218,800; the other Qin PLUS, priced at 11.38-178,800, and this year's new Qin PLUS Champion Edition, the price has come to less than 100,000.
If you are careful, it is not difficult to see that this is the price market that 3 and Y cannot go down.
So the competitive situation in front of Musk and Tesla is already clear.
Either choose the profit-preserving route, hold on to the current price points, or you can come out with a more expensive version - someone will definitely pay for it, but it means that you can't go to achieve a larger scale on the road.
Or choose the scale route, let 3 and Y continue to reduce prices, down to lower prices, and achieve greater sales and delivery. But even if Tesla's production and sales increase, it has basically touched the hard cost ceiling of electric vehicles, such as the majority of power batteries, and the lithium resources behind it have not decreased in terms of cycle costs.
Starting from first principles, the goal is the most logical way to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy or to make a data-driven leap to autonomous driving technology on the road of larger-scale production vehicles, launch more affordable models, and occupy the largest market.
What's more, Tesla has basically completed the finalization of the hardware sensor scheme, and takes the pure visual route without lidar, and the cost is controllable, ensuring that it can have the same intelligent driving experience as the most expensive models on lower-priced models.
So in the end, for Tesla, the question is just what kind of model to produce.
No, the small steel cannon became one of the exposed in the design draft. There may be other models with design ideas, but it is certain that it will be within the price of 200,000, or even 100,000 gears later, everything is only a matter of time.
However, this is not good news for other players.
If Tesla launches a model in the price range of 100,000-200,000, it may become the first car for many young owners and user groups.
"Young man's first car" is not just a label, but also a countdown -
Not only the new players who have not yet released or delivered the car, but also all the car players who have not yet built barriers, they are running out of time.
News Links:
[1]https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-next-gen-platform-teaser-engineering-hq-video/
[2]https://electrek.co/2023/02/23/tesla-leak-design-electric-compact-car
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