Electric pickup trucks are only on the market and are not listed, blaming Chinese regulations?
Tesla's pure electric pickup truck finally has a Chinese name, and the name Cybertruck also gives domestic users a kind of side-kick reverie. The tour of eight cities in China has been completed, and if it is not related to pickup trucks, will Tesla's Cybertruck be able to be listed in China? After all, Musk's previous statement was that "legalization on the road in China will be very difficult." But the reality is that even if there are no regulations, if the Cybertruck wants to be sold domestically, Tesla can't do it on its own.
was suppressed by Ford in his hometown, and Tesla relied on stainless steel to catch up with work
The core problem may lie in the stainless steel body of the Tesla Cybertruck. First of all, let's be clear, Tesla is not a "full-time dreamer" role. Or at least in the century-old automobile industry, Tesla must have finally succeeded in getting out of the circle with the ultimate commercialization logic. The main contradiction in the Cybertruck is that it compromises high production efficiency and high cost control. To put it bluntly, do you think Tesla doesn't want to use aluminum alloy on the Cybertruck?
But now that Tesla has begun to promote the one-piece die-casting technology that has swept the world, it is undoubtedly stuck in the Cybertruck. Although there has been news of the delivery of 9,000-ton die-casting machines, the yield of this super-large die-casting machine has been ignored for the time being. Even if it lands, it wants to directly cover the production of pickup trucks with a length of more than 5.6 meters. Its process complexity, production efficiency level, etc., are far less than Tesla's grasp of the current mainstream B-class models.
But for a car company from North America, building a pickup truck seems to be an unavoidable thing. In other words, if you want to impress hometown users in a larger basic disk, building a pickup truck is a topic that cannot be bypassed. Even a little more daring speculation, although the PPT of the Tesla Cybertruck is earlier than the Ford F-150 Lightning next door. But if Ford doesn't land and deliver it sooner, Tesla may be able to give its large die-casting machine more time. In the end, not only did this assumption not hold, but Ford also used aluminum bodywork for the F-150 Lightning directly. This not only effectively controls the weight of the vehicle after electrification, but also pushes up the vehicle's range performance. For Tesla, not only is the technology of aluminum alloy preemptively occupied, but its own integrated die-casting technology cannot be decentralized, resulting in the blind launch of the pure electric pickup project, which is easy to become a power generation for love.
The end result is known, and after repeated ticket jumps, the Tesla Cybertruck was finally born with a stainless steel body structure. Looking back now, Tesla's technical propaganda of the so-called bulletproof and other "American flavors" is more like a technical endorsement of the stainless steel body. It seems that he wants to create a kind of technical innovation of cold-rolled stainless steel carefully for the sake of hometown users. From a business point of view, of course, there is nothing wrong with that. But from a technical point of view, we still have to implement Tesla's most simple pursuit: efficiency and profit.
"Pickup stamping" is simple, but no one buys it when it is made in China?
From an efficiency perspective, Tesla's choice of cold-rolled stainless steel is undoubtedly the right one. Because it can strip away the stamping and painting processes in traditional automotive manufacturing. It can be said that the four major workshops have eliminated two at once. At the same time, the strength of the body does not have to worry about at all, and by the way, the problem of corrosion resistance is solved. The above characteristics happen to be in line with the product positioning of pickup truck models, and they have become the product particularity that Tesla is more willing to emphasize when promoting. However, if it is so good to build a car with stainless steel, then the traditional car companies will obviously not wait for Tesla to eat crabs.
Also in terms of efficiency, although stainless steel is used directly, the manufacturing process is saved. But this is nothing more than shifting the pressure to upstream suppliers. Since the new material could not even be carried by a stamping machine, it was clear that it would not be easy to process it. Even Tesla's Cybertruck has adopted an angular design. Yes, this kind of sci-fi design is also largely for the supplier and the later welding work to reduce the burden. Another area that affects efficiency is the weight of the vehicle. After all, stainless steel does not have the same weight loss talent as aluminum alloy. The Tesla Cybertruck weighs about 3 tons, which will be a burden on performance and energy consumption.
Although in terms of final performance, the acceleration of Tesla's Cybertruck is still a miracle. But the combined cost of getting it all won't lie, with the Ford F-150 Lightning next door starting at less than $50,000 in the face of a starting price of more than $60,000 (or a single-motor version). Another point that can support Tesla's failure to control costs is that when the car debuted in 2019, the price of the single-motor rear-wheel drive version was less than $40,000. On the basis of maintaining stainless steel, and regardless of whether the manufacturing efficiency can be qualitatively improved in the future, it is not easy to maintain the supply chain itself and bring the price down to $20,000.
When we return to the Chinese market, the situation becomes clearer. Let's say Tesla's Cybertruck is going to be launched in China. First of all, Tesla needs to build a cold-rolled stainless steel supply chain, as well as a factory equipped with welding and assembly workshops that meet the new requirements. And this happens to be contrary to the integrated die-casting aluminum alloy production line laid by Tesla in China at this stage. On this basis, I am afraid that at most, it can only be imported in small quantities like Tesla Model S to meet the curious consumption mentality of a small number of people. In this case, whether it can meet the needs of different regulations is not the core contradiction.
Along with the regulatory issues, we will also extend a little more. Judging from the eight cities selected for the tour, Tesla has a tendency to focus on the western region, a traditional pickup truck consumption destination, but it is more a recognition of the consumption capacity of the core first- and second-tier cities in China. Then the Tesla Cybertruck does need to make some targeted changes. The most common is the so-called "pickup capping" operation. But to change the fixed form of the body, it comes back to the core issue we talked about today. The plasticity of stainless steel material is too poor, the cost of mold opening is too high, and the marginal effect is not obvious. Then it has to be adjusted according to the Chinese market, and the already high cost control pressure is afraid that it will go to heaven.
Therefore, before the maturity of the larger one-piece die-casting aluminum alloy technology, it may be quite difficult for Tesla's Cybertruck to enter the Chinese market in a real sense. The main contradiction is not the domestic regulations at all, but Tesla's precise consideration of efficiency and profitability as an excellent company. So before that, Tesla will find a way to surpass the tonnage of the die-casting machine of Xiaomi Auto.