Tesla is getting old
Original debut | Golden Horn Finance
Author | Zelda
Tesla is about to be surpassed by BYD!
Recently, Tesla released production and sales data for the third quarter of this year. Among them, vehicle deliveries were lower than market expectations, down 6.7% from the second quarter.
This is the first time since the second quarter of 2022 that Tesla has experienced a month-over-quarter decline in deliveries, and the last time it experienced a month-over-quarter decline in deliveries dates back to the beginning of 2020.
In contrast, BYD's data is climbing. In the third quarter of this year, BYD achieved a total of 431,600 pure electric vehicle sales, an increase of 23% from the second quarter, and the gap with Tesla was less than 3500 units. You know, in the second quarter, the gap between the two was as high as 113,900 vehicles.
Under pressure, Musk took three major moves of price reduction, facelift and automatic driving to break the game. Compared with the first two directly solve the current sales problem, autonomous driving means a lot to him, because this is the "technology story" he wants to tell Wall Street.
Musk hopes that through the development and landing of autonomous driving, the capital market can focus more on Tesla's future value, rather than the current "small profit".
It's just that when BYD completely surpasses Tesla in data, Tesla's industry dominance and pricing power will inevitably be challenged, and the current "small profits" will hinder Wall Street from paying for the "technology story".
Sales declined, and prices were reduced again
From the data level, the "sales crown" dispute between Tesla and BYD has entered a white-hot stage.
On October 2, local time in the United States, Tesla disclosed production and sales data for the third quarter of this year.
In the quarter, Tesla produced 430,500 vehicles, down 10% from the second quarter. Among them, Model S/X production volume was 13,700 units, and Model 3/Y was 416,800 units.
Tesla delivered 435,100 vehicles during the same period, down 6.7% from the second quarter and lower than Wall Street's expectation of 461,600 vehicles. Among them, 16,000 units were delivered for the Model S/X and 419,100 units were delivered for the Model 3/Y.
This is the first time since the second quarter of 2022 that Tesla has experienced a month-over-quarter decline in deliveries, and the last time it experienced a month-over-quarter decline in deliveries dates back to the beginning of 2020.
Tesla said the decline in production and sales in the third quarter was mainly due to the escalation of factory shutdowns, but its sales target of 1.8 million vehicles this year remained unchanged. In the first three quarters of 2023, Tesla delivered a cumulative total of 1.324 million vehicles, which means that the company needs to reach a record 476,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter to meet its full-year sales target.
Tesla's sluggish sales data has given BYD hope of overtaking.
On the evening of October 2, BYD announced September sales data on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the same month, BYD achieved sales of 287,500 new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 42.8% compared with 201,300 units in the same period last year. From the perspective of the whole year, BYD has achieved a cumulative sales of 2.0796 million new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 76.23%.
Bright sales data made BYD almost replace Tesla as the king of pure electric vehicles in the world in the third quarter.
According to the above announcement, BYD achieved pure electric vehicle sales of 151,200 units in September, compared with 134,800 units and 145,600 units in July and August, respectively, and achieved a total of 431,600 pure electric vehicle sales in the third quarter, an increase of 23% from the second quarter.
Compared with Tesla's global car delivery volume of 435,100 units in the third quarter, the gap between BYD in the same period was less than 35,000 units, and the gap between the two sides was minimal. After all, in the second quarter of this year, Tesla delivered 466,100 vehicles, while BYD's pure electric sales volume was 352,200 vehicles, a gap of 113,900 vehicles.
Under the pressure of competitors, Tesla once again tried to "price for volume" to maintain its leading position.
On the evening of October 5, Tesla lowered the price of Model 3 and Model Y models in the United States.
According to Tesla's website, the starting price of the standard version of the Model 3 was reduced to $38,990 from the previous $40,240, the starting price of the long-range version was reduced from $47,240 to $45,990, and the starting price of the high-performance version was reduced from $53,240 to $50,990.
At the same time, the starting price of Tesla Model Y high-performance version dropped from $54,490 to $52,490, and the starting price of the long-range version dropped from $50,490 to $48,490.
For Tesla's price cut immediately after releasing sales data, some Wall Street analysts believe that this reflects that Tesla's sluggish sales may not be caused by factories, but because of sluggish demand.
The analyst said that Tesla chose to cut prices after only five days into the fourth quarter of this year, and the company's third-quarter deliveries were only 4,500 more than the current quarter, and the company's inventory reached a record 106,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
Not "Chinese" enough
In the field of public opinion, Musk has been portrayed as an "old friend of the Chinese people." For a long time, this business tycoon has attached great importance to the Chinese market, and will come directly to China to expand his business at every key node.
Although personal attitude and company strategy set the Chinese market at a high level, it is difficult to hide the drawbacks of Tesla's product logic not being "Chinese" enough.
At present, Tesla has four models on sale, of which Model 3 and Model Y are the absolute sales mainstay. In the third quarter of this year, these two models accounted for 96.3% of Tesla's total sales.
However, the Model 3 and Model Y, released in 2016 and 2019 respectively, have not been remodeled in the past few years, which seems to be a bit out of place in the Chinese market.
At present, in the Chinese market, the electrification period of electric models has been shortened to two or even one year.
For example, Huawei's partner brand AITO released the M7, a medium- and large-sized SUV, in July 2022, and launched a facelifted model in September 2023, with a price reduction of CNY 40,000. Xpeng Motors released the G9 pure electric SUV model in September 2022, followed by the facelifted G9 in September this year, and the price has also dropped significantly.
"Tesla is moving too slowly. In the domestic electric vehicles have launched new products, or launched new configurations for old cars to achieve price reduction and increase, Tesla's product iteration speed of 4 years or even longer cycle is obviously incomparable with Chinese competitors. Some electric vehicle industry insiders said.
He believes that if the facelift can be introduced earlier, "I believe Tesla can sell more cars."
It was not until sales began to face obvious pressure this year that Tesla realized the problem and released news of its product changes from September to October.
On September 1, Tesla Model 3 facelift was launched on the official website to open pre-order, the new model has a rear-wheel drive and long range two versions, starting price of 259,900 yuan and 295,900 yuan respectively, is expected to start delivery in the fourth quarter.
The new Model 3 has a number of improvements over the old model, its exterior design is closer to the new Model S, the cockpit configuration has added a rear passenger function control screen, additional soundproof glass and noise-canceling tires, and added interior ambient lights.
In addition, the range of the facelifted Model 3 has also been slightly improved, and Tesla salespeople introduced that the rear-wheel drive version is about 50 kilometers higher than the old model.
On October 1, Tesla announced a slight improvement of the Model Y, adding multi-color ambient lights that were not available in the old car, improving the wheel shape and dashboard trim material, and finally improving the 0 to 100 km/h acceleration time of the entry-level model of the model, the rear-wheel drive version, by 5.9 seconds.
However, Tesla's changes did not satisfy the market, and many comments on the Internet compared the above changes to Apple's previous "squeeze toothpaste" style new products, believing that it was just Tesla's "handover" move.
Will there be no steering wheel and brake pedals?
Compared with marketing strategies such as price cuts and facelifts, Musk is more inclined to solve problems from the technical level and began to bet on autonomous driving technology.
On August 25, Musk tested the new version of FSD live online, trying to make the capital market "pay" for automatic driving, focusing on Tesla's future technological value and ability to guide the industry.
According to Musk, the new version of Tesla's FSD system uses a full neural network model to master driving car skills by learning excellent human driver driving videos. The system removes manually written rules, such as stopping at a red light and not crossing lane lanes to the oncoming lane.
In the 40-plus minute live broadcast, Musk took over the vehicle only once. He claimed that Tesla's FSD system continues to evolve and outperform human drivers by 2023.
Musk has been extremely enthusiastic about self-driving technology in the past, and he has repeatedly predicted a timeline for the mass adoption of the technology, insisted that the FSD system will outperform human drivers, and constantly emphasized that Tesla's value lies in self-driving, otherwise it will be worthless.
Tesla's next-generation product platform can be compatible with Robotaxi models without steering wheels and brake pedals, and its cost will be half that of Model 3 and Model Y platforms.
On September 8, Tesla CEO Musk's biographer Walter lsaacson released the above content in advance on a US website, describing the planning process of the new product platform, revealing that its target price is 25,000 US dollars (about 184,000 yuan), which is 70% of the rear-wheel drive version of the Model 3 facelift currently sold in China.
In addition, excerpts from the biography show that when the new product platform project was approved in November 2021, Musk asked to cancel the steering wheel and brake pedal, and the product should bet on autonomous driving.
The move sparked a huge controversy within Tesla, where a team of engineers worried about the advancement of self-driving technology and regulatory risks, advised Musk in August 2022 not to be too aggressive and that the steering wheel and brake pedals should be retained for new products.
According to the biography, Musk did not accept the advice of the engineering team at first, saying that Robotaxi would make other cars unnecessary, but Tesla designer von Holzhausen did not give up persuading Musk, he quietly retained and designed new models with steering wheels and brake pedals.
In February 2023, von Holzhausen presented Musk the Robotaxi and the design of two models equipped with steering wheels. In the end, Musk decided to produce two new models at once.
On March 1, Musk announced at the investor day that he will build a new factory in Mexico to produce next-generation platform models in a completely new production method.
The Mexican president revealed in advance on February 28 that Tesla's new factory is located in Monterrey, the capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The Mexican government says Tesla's Mexican plant will eventually have an annual production capacity of 1 million vehicles.
However, safety issues are still a big problem for autonomous driving technology, and it is also the key to whether consumers can finally accept it.
On the day Tesla released its sales data for the third quarter of this year, a traffic accident in San Francisco once again put the safety of autonomous driving in the spotlight.
On the evening of October 2, local time in the United States, a driverless taxi deployed by Cruise in San Francisco crashed.
The accident statement released by Cruise said that the pedestrian fell directly in front of the Cruise driverless car after being violently hit by another manned car, and although the driverless car quickly braked, the pedestrian was swept under the car.
San Francisco emergency personnel told U.S. media that the pedestrian had suffered multiple traumas and had been taken to the hospital, and her health was not yet known.
Whether or not automatic driving is adopted, traffic can not be completely avoided, but relatively speaking, accidents caused by autonomous driving technology will have a great impact on the psychology of the public, making the public more worried about the safety of this technology, and then making consumers' acceptance of this technology variable.
This means that autonomous driving technology is still facing challenges in laws and regulations, social acceptance, technology development and other aspects in the short term, which may be difficult to support Tesla's future technological value.
Resources:
U.S. stock investors "Tesla Q3 delivery is less than Wall Street's expectations, starting a new round of price cuts"
Caixin "Tesla's production and sales in the third quarter fell month-on-month, and the delivery of electric pickup trucks is imminent"
Tiger Sniff "Learning Apple "squeeze toothpaste" Tesla, going to live a hard life? 》
Caixin's How to Sell Tesla's Next Generation Products? Musk's biography reveals a target price of $25,000