Tesla has lowered the price again, can you stand it?
On April 21, Tesla China announced a price cut of 14,000 for all models, this time the price of S3XY was reduced. Among them, the starting price of the new Model 3 version has dropped to 231,900 yuan, and the starting price of the Model Y has dropped to 249,900 yuan, both of which have reached the lowest level in history.
It turns out that April 22 is the 10th anniversary of Tesla's entry into the Chinese market, and the price cut is to celebrate his birthday?
However, frequent price adjustments are Tesla's regular routines, Tao Lin has long said that Tesla insists on pricing at cost, Model 3, Model Y two cars in a year to adjust the price almost 10 times, or even a month 2 times, we are not used to but have to accept, who called Tesla's sales far ahead. In general, Tesla took the initiative to reduce prices at this time.
But this time is different from before, Tesla has recently launched a series of promotional offers, such as insurance subsidies, ultra-low down payments, up to 5 years 0 interest loans, etc., this is not what Tesla, which has always been high-profile, will do, perhaps it has reached the point where it has to reduce prices.
Although Tesla's revenue will hit a new high of $96.773 billion in 2023, with a year-on-year increase of 19%, it has slowed down significantly compared with the growth rate of more than 50% in the previous two years, and the net profit in the fourth quarter of last year fell by 23% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin of the automotive business was also lower than market expectations.
In the first quarter of 2024, Tesla delivered 387,000 new cars worldwide, leading BYD to become the world's highest-selling brand of pure electric vehicles by a very large margin, but it fell by nearly 8.9% from the same period last year, the first year-on-year decline in quarterly deliveries in four years, and a 20.2% decline from the fourth quarter of last year.
According to the data of the Passenger Association, Tesla's retail sales in China from January to March this year were 132,400 units, a slight decrease of 3.6% year-on-year, not only losing the momentum of previous rapid growth, when other independent brands generally have double-digit or even triple-digit growth rates, Tesla's standing still is equivalent to a very big regression, which means that many consumers have given up Tesla and choose other brands.
Seeing that the sales of new cars were less than expected, Musk quickly showed the iron fist of capitalists, announcing in mid-April that in order to reduce costs, he would lay off 10% of his global workforce, and it is expected that more than 14,000 people will receive graduation gift packages. Coupled with the slow mass production of 4680 batteries and the negative news that FSD is not as popular as expected, Tesla's stock price has fallen by more than 40% this year.
The most critical step in dealing with the decline in demand is to reduce prices, and this time not only in China, Tesla on April 20 lowered the price of the Model Y in the U.S. market by $2,000, and reduced the price of FSD from $12,000 to $8,000, and also reduced prices in Canada and Germany.
When Tesla is at its strongest, every time it cuts prices, it can affect market sentiment, and even "command" other brands to set prices...... Do you dare to go up with me?
However, Tesla's performance of other brands after the recent price cuts is very calm, and almost no brands follow the price reduction, because they have already rolled the price to the ceiling, and Zeekr even said that it is very confident in its products and pricing, and will not follow the price reduction or configuration of friends.
Ten years ago, Tesla carried out a dimensionality reduction blow to the whole industry, but its own brands have basically achieved technological catch-up or even surpassing in these years, on the contrary, Tesla has only 4 passenger cars from beginning to end, although there is a so-called replacement but in fact change, this kind of inaction is constantly consuming the freshness of consumers and the worship of the brand.
Sales declined, stock prices plummeted, global layoffs, and price cuts across the board, and even independent brands are no longer looking forward to Tesla, and the consequences of Tesla's lying flat are beginning to show. Although the official explanation is that factors such as the situation in the Red Sea and the fire at the German factory have affected sales, we can see that Tesla cannot make money lying down as before, and perhaps this is the beginning of the collapse of Tesla's dominance.
Almost on the same day, there was also a brand that officially announced a price cut for all its products.
On April 22, Ideal announced the price reduction of the 2024 Ideal L7, L8, L9 and MEGA series, of which the L9 series, L7 and L8 Ultra and Max models will be reduced by 20,000, the Pro model will be reduced by 18,000, and the MEGA will be reduced by 30,000.
There is no doubt that the ideal feels a lot of pressure.
Today's January-March period, the ideal cumulative sales reached 80,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 52.9%, which looks pretty good. But looking at the question of only 3 models, it can fight back and forth with itself, and even the cumulative sales in the first three months are 2,500 more than ideal, a year-on-year increase of up to 600%, can you not be in a hurry?
Sales are one thing, and the biggest source of pressure for ideals is still themselves. We all know that the ideal MEGA has set off a huge storm of public opinion, and the shape similar to the Chinese-style coffin has been spoofed and ridiculed by netizens on a large scale.
This has affected the reputation of the entire ideal brand, not only the sales of MEGA are far less than expected, but even the exhibition halls in many places dare not release the MEGA show car, and the negative impact has affected the sales of the main L series, coupled with the increasingly fierce external competition, although the ideal sales have increased, the magnitude is far less than Li Xiang's ambitions.
Ideal's sales target for this year is 800,000 units, but only 10% of the past quarter has been completed, even if there is a cheaper L6 on the market, there is a high probability that the ideal will not be able to complete the task, if the sales are still very ugly, how to explain to shareholders in the end? Li Xiang can only backstab the old car owner again, and choose to reduce the price of the whole series.
Now Xiaopeng has wilted, the total sales of the brand is less than 10,000 units, if the ideal follows Xiaopeng to sink, the three giants of the new forces of "Wei Xiaoli" can basically announce their dissolution, after all, not only they have innovation, technology, but even sales have fallen to the second or even third echelon, can such a brand still be called a "giant"?
If you want to form a new big three, 51 Jun thinks that it can be "ask Xiaowei", "ask" is naturally to ask the world, "small" becomes Xiaomi, Weilai's blueprint is still very grand, let's keep it first.
In order to maintain market competitiveness, the most important thing is to respect the needs of consumers, actively innovate, and forcibly change consumer habits and challenge the extreme behavior of public aesthetics.
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