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At the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., arrived in Beijing on the afternoon of April 28. Ren Hongbin, President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, met with Musk to exchange views on topics such as the next step of cooperation.
With no previous signs of this, the "mysterious" and "sudden" visit immediately attracted global attention.
Musk arrives in Beijing (Source: Yuyuan Tantian)
The Chao News reporter noted that about a week ago, Musk postponed the arrangement to travel to India to meet with his Prime Minister Modi, citing Tesla's "obligations". Why is this visit so important to him?
"Fully autonomous driving" is the key word in this trip
It is worth mentioning that Musk's visit to China coincided with the Beijing Auto Show.
He was on a trip to seek to meet with Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the rollout of Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in China and seek approval.
On February 8, local time, at the McCormick Exhibition Center in Chicago, USA, a reporter stood in front of a Tesla Cyber pickup truck. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Joel Reiner)
On April 26, Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla, commented on People's Daily Online, saying that in the future, intelligent technologies represented by artificial intelligence and autonomous driving will further bring new growth engines to electric vehicles and build core competitiveness in the high-quality development of new energy.
Although Tesla introduced the FSD feature four years ago, the U.S. auto safety regulator announced that it had launched a new investigation into Tesla. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) received 20 accident reports after Tesla recalled more than 2 million vehicles in December 2023 and installed a new version of Autopilot's software, Zhongxin Jingwei reported.
Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory (Source: Xinhua News Agency Weibo)
At the same time, Chinese automakers, including NIO, XPeng and Wenjie, have been looking to reap the benefits of electric vehicles by rolling out self-driving software.
Coming to China can better "stabilize the morale of the military"
In addition to competition in autonomous driving, Tesla is now also facing a slowdown or even a decline in sales growth, which is considered to be the main reason for the 10% global layoffs previously announced.
It is reported that after the market on April 23, Tesla's first-quarter results showed that revenue fell by 9% year-on-year. This is the company's largest year-over-year decline since 2012. Although the news that Musk said that he plans to start producing new models by 2025 has pushed Tesla's stock price up more than 12% after hours, Tesla's stock price has fallen by more than 40% so far this year.
This is a Tesla car sales store photographed in San Mateo County, California, USA, on April 15, local time. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Li Jianguo)
Some analyses show that the main reason for Tesla's sharp decline in profits is the price reduction in the fierce price war for electric vehicles. The Chinese market, which is supported by Tesla's sales, is now very competitive, and Tesla's sales have also shown a downward trend.
In an interview, Yang Yang, an associate researcher at the Center for American Studies at Zhejiang University of Foreign Chinese, said that in fact, the original plan to visit India was very important for both Musk and Indian Prime Minister Modi. Modi hopes to start a third term, and Musk's arrival will show the public that he can attract international big companies and make them feel at ease with the economy, and Musk has been revealed to be planning to set up a factory in India, and going to India is also to reassure investors that opening up markets in South and Southeast Asia will change the current trend of declining profits.
Workers work on the production line in the assembly hall of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory (photo taken on May 12, 2023). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ma Ning
"And Musk didn't go to India, he chose to come to China, and it is clear that the Chinese market is more important to him. The headline of the Reuters report shows that China is Tesla's second-largest market. In addition, there are also rich application scenarios here, and if cooperation with China can be improved, Tesla's technology will inevitably be taken to the next level and occupy more shares in the global market. Therefore, coming to China can better 'stabilize the morale of the military'. He said.
Chao News reporter Xu Jun
Editor in charge: Yuan Ying