In less than 24 hours of his visit to China, Musk met with a number of government officials and left a key easter egg:
Tesla's version of the city NOA "FSD" is about to land in China.
With the Chinese Internet world applauding, our neighbor India is unhappy:
It was originally scheduled that Musk would go to India to discuss the construction of a factory with Modi in April, but it was not only postponed, but went to China?
At the beginning of April, Musk posted on X that he was looking forward to meeting with Indian Prime Minister Modi, and originally planned to visit India from April 21 to 22, but then said that "Tesla has a heavy workload and decided to postpone its trip to India, but still looks forward to a meeting later this year."
Just a week later, local mainstream media such as The Indian Express and The Times of India have shifted their focus from Musk's apology to his postponement of his trip to India and appeared in China.
"Lookout" posted that Musk launched a round of "surprise visits" to China after postponing his trip to India, and pointed out that Musk's trip was welcomed by the Chinese people, and there was no shortage of content on the Internet about Musk trying Chinese food.
Musk's change of itinerary has attracted much attention in India, and there are comments that Musk's move may be to "avoid suspicion", India's general election has been launched on April 19 and will last until June 1, if Musk visits India during the period, it is not ruled out that he will stand for Prime Minister Modi.
India's "Business Standard" newspaper quoted the words of a congressman as pointing out that Musk's postponement of his trip to India may be due to his bad premonition.
In contrast, Musk's visit to China will be much simpler.
For Musk's "missed appointment", netizens do not seem to be surprised.
Some investors posted on X that Tesla has a gigafactory in Shanghai and sold more than 1.8 million vehicles last year, but in India, Tesla's business has not yet started, so it is not unusual for Musk to visit China.
Some netizens commented that Musk is a "shrewd businessman who is good at using his time".
To be precise, saving unnecessary costs and reducing the time that can be reduced is one of Tesla's successful methodologies.
Some netizens also pointed out that Musk's visit to China can save Tesla's declining revenue with the help of government-enterprise cooperation, compared with the previous quarter, Tesla's car business revenue in the first quarter of this year was a full $4.2 billion less.
Indian netizens gave their own speculation that Musk's investment ideas in the Indian market may have been shaken, and it is unknown whether Tesla's plan to build a gigafactory there can be scheduled.
In Si Jijun's view, Musk's KPI for coming to China this time has basically achieved the goal, looking back on the past ten years, Musk has come to China several times, and the purpose is very clear.
In 2014, when he first came to China, Musk met with Wan Gang, then Minister of Science and Technology, and Miao Wei, former Minister of Industry and Information Technology, who said that Tesla was willing to cooperate with the Chinese government and enterprises in the construction of charging stations, and hoped that China could give Tesla preferential import tariffs.
Then, in 2015, Musk flew to Beijing to negotiate the investment and construction of the first factory, and the hidden task was to adjust the Chinese team and carry out marketing.
Wan Gang, former Minister of Science and Technology, met with Musk
In 2017, Musk immediately flew to China to meet with Wang Yang, then Vice Premier of the State Council, which laid the groundwork for Tesla's wholly-owned factory construction in Shanghai.
The following year, Musk arrived in Shanghai and won more than 1,000 acres of industrial land at a price of 1,125 yuan per square meter, and the Lingang super factory project was finalized.
When Musk came to China again in 2019, the construction of the Shanghai factory had already begun, and the next year he attended the delivery ceremony of the domestically produced Model 3, dancing excitedly, and then visited China at the end of May last year, Musk spent 44 hours in Beijing and Shanghai.
At that time, there was a voice that FSD may soon enter China, and by this year, Tesla has pushed FSD v12.3.5 in North America on a large scale, and the purpose of Musk's unexpected visit to Beijing may be self-evident.
He Xiaopeng, the representative of the first echelon of domestic intelligent driving, took the lead in expressing his welcome, and everyone was looking forward to the new catfish in place.
According to China's Cybersecurity Law, all data of Chinese citizens or regions related to broadly defined national security issues must be stored on servers in China, and the operator of the cloud service must be a local enterprise.
Tesla has built data centers in China before, and now it is close to the door.
Then again, compared with Tesla's FSD landing in China, the difficulty factor of building a factory in India is not generally high, which can refer to the story of Foxconn's construction of a factory in India.
Foxconn, which has been producing iPhones in 2019 in Sunguvarchatram, an industrial hub on the outskirts of Chennai, still needs the support of Chinese workers, the main difficulties are:
- In addition to labor, India is very expensive, and there are a bunch of problems, resulting in a high defect rate of iPhones, and the profit level is much lower than that of Chinese factories.
- Indian mechanics struggle to cope with the intensity and complexity of electronics assembly, where workers refuse to work overtime, in the words of suppliers, "eight-hour shifts and coffee breaks are a serious drag on production." "As soon as the ass sat down, the rest time came again, only to blame us Chinese for being too rolly.
- Most of the machines only have Chinese instructions, including software, so Foxconn sent domestic engineers to support the Indian factory, but it is common to not understand Indian English, and the reality is that the other party may not understand "non-Indian English" either.
Coupled with China's hard-to-surpass manufacturing advantages and strong government support, the article draws a conclusion:
"Apple is spoilt for choice in China".