Nearly 1,000 people protested, Tesla's German factory had another accident, and the company's market value evaporated by 1.85 trillion yuan during the year

National Business Daily

2024-05-12 09:22Published on the official account of Sichuan Daily Economic News

Edited by: Bi Luming

Tesla's German factory has an accident again!

According to CCTV News on the 12th, according to a German TV report, on May 11, local time, nearly 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Tesla Gigafactory in Glenheide, Brandenburg, Germany, to protest against Tesla's proposed expansion plan.

The protests began on the 8th of this month. The Tesla plant in Germany had submitted plans to the city government of Glenheide to expand the plant, but local residents held demonstrations demanding that the city not approve the expansion plan, believing that the expansion would pollute the water supply.

Image source: Daily Economic News data map

On March 6, local time, Tesla Inc. of the United States said that the electric vehicle company's "gigafactory" in Germany will stop production until March 17, which is longer than previously expected. The day before, Tesla's only factory in Europe was forced to suspend production due to damage to the power supply line, and the cost of the shutdown is estimated to be hundreds of millions of euros.

On March 5, local time, someone was suspected of setting fire to a high-voltage line near Tesla's Berlin factory in Germany, causing a power outage at Tesla's only manufacturing plant in Europe, and Tesla was forced to stop production at the German factory. A statement from Tesla said: "In the early hours of the morning, there was a power outage on the public power grid due to a suspected arson attack, which led to the halt of production. ”

On March 6, local time, Tesla said that the electric vehicle company's "gigafactory" in Germany will stop production until March 17, which is longer than previously expected. However, Musk posted on March 13 that Tesla's Gigafactory in Berlin has resumed operations and thanked employees for their support.

Andre Tyriguer, director of Tesla's German factory, has said that more than 1,000 vehicles a day could not roll off the assembly line during the shutdown, "which means up to nine figures of loss for us". The left-wing extremist group "Volcano Organization" said on the 6th that they were responsible for the arson on the 5th. The group claims that Tesla's factories affect the environment and local water supplies, and that they are "extremely exploitative." The plant currently employs about 12,500 people.

Tesla's financial report for the first quarter of 2024 shows that Tesla's operating income in the first quarter of 2024 was $21.3 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 9%, which was Tesla's first quarterly revenue decline in nearly four years, and Tesla's net profit in the first quarter was $1.129 billion, down 55% year-on-year.

In terms of car sales, Tesla delivered 386,800 new cars in the first quarter of 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%, including 370,000 Model 3 and Model Y, and 17,000 other products. From the perspective of the Chinese market, Tesla's sales in China in the first quarter of 2024 will drop to only 133,000 units, a year-on-year decline is also obvious.

As for the reasons for the decline in sales, Tesla attributed it to "force majeure": first, the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis interrupted Tesla's supply of parts and temporarily suspended production at its factory in Berlin; Second, in March, German environmental activists set fire to the infrastructure near the Berlin factory, which deprived Tesla's related factories of sufficient operating capacity and led to another shutdown. Finally, after the Model 3 upgrade, the Fremont factory in California is still in the early stage of capacity ramp-up, which affects Tesla's production and sales.

The financial report also shows that Tesla's artificial intelligence training calculations related to autonomous driving have increased by 130%. At present, Tesla already has millions of vehicle data and massive AI training clusters to enable large-scale autonomous driving, and will continue to scale up. This means that Tesla is also "AII in self-driving", and its artificial intelligence technology development is entering the stage of full speed advancement.

In its Q1 2024 earnings report, Tesla said it would accelerate the launch of more affordable models. Musk said on the earnings call that he expects the budget model to be on the market as early as early 2025, and even does not rule out an advance to late 2024, "which will be quite fast." The next-generation product line will build on existing production lines and will not require the construction of new factories."

In addition, on April 15, Musk issued an all-staff email, setting Tesla's global layoff rate at 10%. Some analysts believe that a wave of layoffs every year is Tesla's "normal operation", and due to the rapid growth of employees, Tesla will fire some underperforming employees to improve the overall efficiency of the company.

Since the beginning of this year, Tesla (TSLA; Stock price: US$168.470, total market capitalization: US$537.3 billion) The stock price has fallen by more than 32%, and the market value has evaporated by US$255.1 billion, or about 1.85 trillion yuan.

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