According to foreign media Automotive News, after Toyota recently disassembled a Tesla Model Y, its executives shouted: "Remove the shell of Model Y, it is really a work of art, this is incredible."
As the saying goes: the layman looks lively, the insider watches the doorway. As the current global automobile market leader Toyota in the automotive industry can be described as through storms, well-informed, and for a car to give such a high, even the use of "artwork" this kind of almost exaggerated evaluation in our opinion, that can only say that people Toyota does see the doorway, more importantly, people fancy this doorway is probably the key to the evolution of the automobile industry from traditional fuel vehicles to modern new energy vehicles.
Manufacturing-based: Only subversive manufacturing can create subversion
As we all know, automobile manufacturing is known as the crown jewel of modern industry. Vehicle development is quite a complex project engineering, from the early product planning to the mass production process of the whole vehicle, which involves a large number of design and verification links, which requires more than 10,000 parts and takes 3~5 years. In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, due to the different traditional manufacturing capabilities (including design and development, project process management, quality control, vehicle manufacturing, etc.) of various car companies, the quality, durability, safety, comfort and reliability of the vehicles produced are quite different.
The reason why Toyota has been successful in the field of traditional fuel vehicles is mainly due to its consistent strong manufacturing system, and has been constantly adjusting and streamlining the production process to improve efficiency. One of the most well-known in the industry is TPS, also known as the more general "lean manufacturing system" or just-in-time (JIT) production, which is a representative of the so-called "Toyota model".
There are many and complex introductions related to the "Toyota model", and we will not repeat them, but in our opinion, it is to minimize costs through various means such as technology and model innovation in manufacturing and manufacturing-related links, or to best balance costs with the quality of cars required by the market and users. As the industry summed up after Toyota's "Toyota model" study that came to the fore and surpassed American automakers: overtaking on corners, cost wins.
Based on this, let's look at what Toyota saw when disassembling the Model Y?
According to Automotive News, after dismantling, Toyota found that the latest version of the Model Y, although there was no major change in appearance, was very different under the stripping of the metal coat.
For example, Tesla uses integrated die-casting technology, and there are only two huge casting modules in the front and rear of the vehicle, which looks slightly rough compared with the traditional automobile production process represented by Toyota, but it saves hundreds of parts, which is easier to manufacture and reduce costs.
The latest Model Y adopts a chassis battery integrated design, rather than cramming the battery between the front and rear axles. This approach reduces the vehicle's weight by 220 pounds while increasing the vehicle's battery life and cutting overall costs.
Nevertheless, at Tesla's "Investor Day" held recently, Tesla said that it will continue to reduce the number of Model Y body parts, break the body into several parts, improve production efficiency by 30% from the perspective of time and space, and carry out serial assembly and parallel assembly at the same time, such as the interior assembly from bottom to top, and operate different parts at the same time. Tesla has repeatedly emphasized that in the end, the assembly of the whole vehicle will only need to be carried out once. Tesla believes that traditional vehicle assembly methods, including stamping, bodywork, painting and final assembly, are relatively inefficient.
Meanwhile, Tesla chief engineer Lars Moravy said the company hopes to build the next generation of cars at half the cost of the current Model 3 or Model Y.
We don't know if and when the aforementioned Tesla Master Project words will eventually materialize, but rumors and analysis of a similarly lower-cost Tesla model, the Model 2, have been buzzing in the industry.
For example, a recent Newstreet Research study showed that Tesla Model 2 manufacturing costs are expected to be about 37% lower than Model 3. Tesla was exposed to be currently developing the third generation of the car platform, the new generation of platform will be more integrated, the production cost of the vehicle will further decrease, will be only half of the current one. Based on the comparison between the fuel compact cars Toyota Corolla, Yaris and midsize cars, they concluded that the Model 2 body is expected to be 15% shorter than the Model 3, 30% lighter in weight and 25% smaller in battery.
At the same time, by comparing data, the study believes that excluding the cost of electric vehicle power systems, coupled with Tesla's fully self-driving hardware, the material cost of Model 2 is expected to be comparable to Toyota's Corolla. But the total cost of the Model 2 will be lower than that of the compact Corolla.
To this end, in our opinion, Toyota executives shouted: "It's really a work of art, it's incredible" is not the point, "We need a new platform designed like white paper"; The conclusion that "this is a completely different manufacturing concept" is. Because this means that the "Toyota model" on which Toyota survives, develops and dominates the global automotive industry has encountered challenges not only in the manufacturing concept, but also in the manufacturing process, management and final result, and even risks being replaced in the electric vehicle industry and market.
The so-called: only subversive manufacturing (Tesla subverted the traditional "Toyota model" in manufacturing) can create subversion (Tesla's new manufacturing concept, process, management, etc. subverted the traditional automobile industry and created a new automobile industry manufacturing model). As Koji Sato, who will become Toyota's CEO on April 1 this year, said, there are fundamental differences between the two, such as energy conversion, usage and aerodynamics, which means that every component and process of electric vehicles has to be adjusted.
Software-Defined Vehicles: The Icing on the Cake or Adding Cost?
If the above is Tesla because of the manufacturing by the automotive industry boss Toyota praise, then in the "software-defined car" with intelligence as the main feature is endless. The same Tesla, its self-driving is often criticized, although the industry is recognized as one of the best manufacturers of self-driving technology in production models.
For example, in the previously concluded Super Bowl primetime commercial, there was an advertisement by Dan O'Dowd, a well-known opponent of Tesla, and his organization "Project Dawn" spent about 600,000 US dollars (about 4 million yuan) at their own expense, intended to warn the public to stay away from Tesla FSD and call for a ban on Tesla's full self-driving system from entering the public transportation system.
In the middle of last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tesla applied for the recall of 362758 models in the United States, including the 2016-2023 Model S and Model X, the 2017-2023 Model 3, and the 2020-2023 Model Y. All of the above models are installed or awaiting the installation of Full Self Driving (FSD) beta software. Tesla will achieve the recall through over-the-air (OTA).
In response, NHTSA said that the FSD Beta system may allow vehicles to engage in unsafe behavior around intersections, such as driving straight through an intersection in a turn-only lane, entering an intersection controlled by a stop sign without stopping completely, or entering an intersection when there is an intersection that is not suitable for entry, without due attention to yellow traffic lights. In addition, the system may not adequately respond to changes in speed limits, or may not adequately account for the driver's adjustment of the vehicle's speed to the point of speeding. All of these deficiencies can lead to car accidents.
If the above is only an external manifestation of the criticism of Tesla's self-driving scandal, then Tesla and Musk were sued and claimed by shareholders for exaggerating self-driving technology (on the grounds that Tesla has deceived them over the past four years through false and misleading statements, concealing how its technology "poses a serious risk of accident and injury"), and Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard bluntly said in an interview with the media that automatic driving is. The statement that cars can't learn from the iPhone is an internal reaction to Tesla's self-driving criticism. Martin Eberhard, in particular, argues that it is wrong to think of the car as a software platform (similar to a software-defined car).
What surprised people even more about Tesla's self-driving was that a video about self-driving released by Tesla in 2016 was actually fake.
Of course, the above does not negate Tesla's relative leadership in autonomous driving, for example, an automotive consulting and market research firm Auto Pacific survey last year showed that among the top 10 brands of autonomous driving, Tesla is the most trustworthy car brand.
From this, we can only say that autonomous driving, despite its great potential, still has a long way to go. As for other car companies, the so-called software-defined vehicles (such as automatic driving), finally in the development process of the new energy vehicle industry, is the icing on the cake, or increase the cost, from the attributes of the DNA of new energy vehicles, manufacturing is always the core, even if the future automatic driving really reaches the level we expect, the core position of manufacturing will not waver, which is a basic automotive industry logic. Therefore, from the current stage, automatic driving is the icing on the cake at best, and compared to most car companies, it reflects more of an increase in costs.
It should be noted that on the just-concluded Tesla "Investor Day", Tesla did not seem to mention the topic of intelligence, such as FSD, but more emphasized its capabilities and vision in manufacturing, such as the future to achieve a car every 45 seconds, and the topic of concern in the industry is also when Tesla will launch new models with lower costs and prices, all of which are related to manufacturing.
Light "system" heavy "wisdom": China's new energy vehicle industry sword goes sideways?
Although Tesla, as the leader in autonomous driving, has been repeatedly criticized, this does not seem to hinder the enthusiasm of China's new energy vehicle industry to pursue this, coupled with the traditional ICT and Internet manufacturers out of their own interests in recent years to stand and cheer and some media to promote the waves, what "software-defined car", "intelligent cockpit", "intelligent driving", "automatic driving" and other words related to "intelligence" have become almost all Chinese new energy vehicle companies (including traditional car companies, The mantra of new automakers, etc.), has the meaning of "smart" rather than "new energy vehicles". It seems that only in this way can we prove our innovative strength in the new energy vehicle industry.
In sharp contrast, the innovation and application of "system", which is the most basic of new energy vehicles and the core of Tesla's success, is rarely mentioned by manufacturers. Could it be that in the eyes of our car companies, new energy vehicles are really much simpler than traditional fuel vehicles in terms of "system", and even disdain innovation?
While it may seem like making electric cars is an extension of fuel vehicles, this is not the case. In theory, electric vehicles have far fewer components, so they should be simpler to produce. But the reality is that the body structure, manufacturing and assembly methods of electric vehicles are completely different from traditional fuel vehicles, and the innovation space in this is not only huge, but even subversive, which is proved by our emotion and understanding after the global automotive industry boss Toyota disassembled Tesla Model Y.
In order to prove the space and subversiveness of innovation in the "system", we will take most of the manufacturing process of electric vehicles as an example around batteries, which account for nearly half of the total cost.
When it comes to Tesla's 4680, I think the industry is very familiar, the actual situation is that since the layout of the 4680 large cylindrical lithium-ion battery, Tesla has been working hard to develop a battery dry electrode manufacturing process.
It is understood that the difference between dry electrode technology and traditional wet electrode technology is that the wet process requires the use of solvents, and the process is to mix the negative electrode and positive electrode material powder with the solvent, and then apply it to the metal current collector for drying. The dry method, on the other hand, does not require a solvent, and directly presses the electrode material powder onto the metal current collector to form an electrode. Compared to wet process, dry electrode manufacturing technology does not require a large factory floor space to dry solvents, greatly reducing the capital and labor expenditure required by the plant, and is more environmentally friendly. In order to match the 4680 battery, Tesla also switched to new CTC technology in the assembly process, canceled the Pack design, and directly installed the module on the body, which further reduced the load cost. To this end, Musk said in the third quarter earnings call last year that the simple manufacturing cost of 4680 can be reduced by up to 54%.
It is precisely because of Tesla's innovation and application of manufacturing and manufacturing-related technologies and products that it has not only promoted the popularization of new energy vehicles and met the needs of users, but also brought rich returns to itself and greatly left its opponents.
For example, in terms of profit, taking the third quarter of last year as an example, according to Reuters' analysis of industry data, Tesla's average gross profit per vehicle in the third quarter of 2022 reached $15,653, more than twice that of Volkswagen, four times that of Toyota, and five times that of Ford; By comparison, China's BYD is the closest to Tesla's gross profit at $14,921, while NIO and Xpeng have gross profits of $9,969 and $4,565, respectively.
In terms of net profit, Tesla is far ahead of its competitors. Also in the third quarter of last year, Tesla's average net profit per bicycle reached $9,574, BYD's net profit per bike was $1,575, and NIO's and Xpeng's net losses reached $19,141 and $11,735, respectively.
In terms of meeting user needs, taking the Chinese market, the main battlefield of China's new energy vehicle companies, as an example, according to a survey of 500 customers Chinese mainland by well-known Tesla bulls and Wade Bush Securities, about 76% of Chinese electric vehicle consumers consider buying Tesla in 2023, ranking first in the choice.
Here it is necessary to reiterate once again that our emphasis on "system" does not mean that "wisdom" is not important, but based on the fundamental attributes of the new energy vehicle industry (new manufacturing innovation and model are the core competitiveness), the height of popularization (the current cost is one of the biggest obstacles restricting the popularization of new energy vehicles, and it is necessary to continuously reduce costs through manufacturing innovation), as well as the obvious "wisdom" light "control" sword deviation phenomenon in China's new energy vehicle industry.
Write at the end: the so-called no contrast, there is no harm. Through the fact that Toyota was shaken by the dismantling of Model Y, and the current trend of light "system" and heavy "intelligence" in China's new energy vehicle industry, we believe that whether it is Toyota, the leader of the traditional automobile industry, or Tesla, the overlord of the new energy vehicle industry, our new energy vehicle companies still have a considerable gap in the fundamental understanding of the automobile industry, and lack of awe for the industry, and then in action as some car companies. Intentionally or unintentionally deviated from the basic development law of the automobile industry, noisy, and even blind arrogance, and we know, including but not limited to the manufacture of automobiles is the country's heavy weapon, especially at the time of industrial alternation, the correct understanding of the nature of the development and competition of the relevant manufacturing industry is the key to the role of heavy weapons.
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