In June last year, immersed in the frenzied atmosphere of the huge cheers brought by Elon Musk's visit to China, Zhang Lin received an offer from Tesla. When she moved to Shanghai from a second-tier city, she seemed to have jumped out of her last conservative work circle and "walked to a bigger stage"; This year, when Musk's private jet stopped at the capital airport again, Zhang Lin was no longer a member of Tesla.
Since the announcement of the departure of Tesla's core executive Drew Baglino, a layoff involving at least 14,000 people has spread around the world, and Zhang Lin has become one of the growing numbers.
The layoffs are very sudden, some people receive a layoff notice on the way to work, and some people swipe the access card to get in before they know that they are being laid off; A large number of school recruits were terminated as soon as they got the offer;
The layoffs are also very fast, and the work card does not need to be returned after signing in 5 minutes, and some respondents said, "Every day is like watching 'Xiaoxiao' in the office";
Layoffs continue, in the second week of May, Tesla started a new round of layoffs, foreign media reports pointed out that layoffs in China have increased, and some of the laid-off employees at the Lingang factory left collectively by shuttle. Because Tesla is fully in FSD, the Shanghai design team may all be disbanded.
Around the world, an executive purge is also underway. Zhu Xiaotong, Tesla's "No. 2 man", has reported his return and will personally oversee the most competitive Chinese market, which is also Tesla's second-largest market after the United States, and it has lost its start in the first quarter of this year.
Many times, the ups and downs of this pioneer in the electric market are tied to the Chinese market. In 2019, the Shanghai Lingang Gigafactory rose from the ground, saving Tesla on the line of life and death. Now, the Chinese market is crowded with competitors vying for market share, and after the release of the first-quarter earnings report, "Tesla is no longer a god," people are talking about.
Musk must act. His sudden appearance in Beijing brought with him significant progress on the prospect of FSD landing in China, the imminent launch of robotaxis and cheaper models. The trip to China is still very effective, just like last year's visit to Shanghai made Musk worth a lot and became the richest man in the world, this time, the 24-hour stay sent Tesla a market value of 600 billion yuan.
The cheers in the capital markets are not solid, and Musk wants to refocus on Tesla long before the news lands.
Layoffs, layoffs, and still layoffs
In February this year, Tesla already showed signs of layoffs. Tesla executives were asked to identify the "most important roles" in the team and to postpone performance reviews for some employees.
Two months later, an email signed Elon flew to the mailboxes of employees around the world. Employees at charging stations in North America, employees in stores and offices in China, and workers working morning and evening shifts at the Shanghai factory can see the contents of the email: ...... We conducted a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce the number of employees globally by more than 10%......
Fang Daquan, who works at the Tesla delivery center in Chengdu, read the translation word by word, and he was not surprised that he was selected, "It is what Boss Ma said, sales and delivery have become complex and inefficient, reducing duplicate positions." Two days after the email came out, the same positions at the two delivery centers he knew were laid off, and he was called back to work while he was on a rotational break. As soon as he entered the door, the regional manager was also there, "I guessed it in my heart", the annual leave, compensation and everything in the contract were ready, and in 5 minutes, Fang Daquan ended his work at Tesla.
Zhou Pengfei in the battery assembly workshop received a notice that all employees were on duty and were not allowed to ask for leave. In the first half of last year, the United States mandated that vehicles sold in the United States must use American batteries, which led Tesla to cut the battery lines in its Chinese factories for export. A few months later, market changes led it to organize thousands of workers and reopen the production line.
It was at this time that Zhou Pengfei also took the shuttle bus to enter the Shanghai Lingang factory, and after 12 hours, he took the shuttle bus back to his residence and lived a regular and stable life, until the news of layoffs without warning.
That night, he arrived at his post for only half an hour, and was taken to the second floor to talk and still wore work clothes, but the old employees who signed together changed into their own clothes and brought their own things. Seeing this, Zhou Pengfei speculated, "(These old people) must have had a deep communication with the supervisor very early, discussed it, and waited for this day." In less than an hour, he walked out of the factory building again, and the sky had just darkened, and he was satisfied with the amount of compensation.
"It's hard to say goodbye," Musk said in the email, "I hate layoffs, but I have to." This will allow us to be leaner and better able to innovate in preparation for the next growth cycle. At the end of last year, Tesla had more than 140,000 employees worldwide, and at least 14,000 will be affected.
After reading the email, Gao Yan thought that he was safe for the time being. He recalls the team's private discussions, where they felt that "the operating students carry the guns first" and that "some of the people who are responsible for effort" and "creative" are not so affected.
Things quickly took a turn for the worse. On April 15, a few hours after the email was posted, some colleagues in the group left; In the group with OEMs and external suppliers, some projects that are normally progressing suddenly pop up with work handover messages. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Gao Yan was called in to talk. On the way to the office, he expected only one month's compensation and was determined to fight for it.
Takahiko joined the company not long after. Ten days before the arrival of this email, because he was optimistic about the new energy track and Tesla's job direction, although the salary here was not very advantageous, Gao Yan still chose Tesla from several offers in his hand to be responsible for charging-related business.
Unexpectedly, after entering, he glanced at the number on the contract, a number that exceeded expectations, "Wow, it's not bad."
So, he signed happily. Leader stepped forward and gave him a hug. The other party said, this is not what I want to see. At 6 o'clock, a small pile of badges and computers handed in by the people who left was piled up, and Gao Yan's ID was all turned off.
On the afternoon of April 16, Zhang Lin also walked into the office, she never thought about this day. Last year, Musk had begun to contract softly, and he demanded that "all positions need to be approved by me", and Zhang Lin's direct leaders repeatedly emailed him to fight for a place with Elon. After five or six rounds, Musk finally relented. At that time, Zhang Lin, who was far away in another city, gladly accepted the invitation.
Now, the invitation expires. The leader told her with a blank face that if she agreed to officially terminate the contract at 4 o'clock this afternoon, she could give N+3 compensation, and if it was delayed until 4 o'clock, the compensation would be N+1.
It is unwise to continue arguing, Zhang Lin just regrets the stock that did not arrive. At the time of employment, about 3 months of income are exchanged for shares, which will be paid out after one year, and will be vested in four years, and the employee will bear the profit and loss risk. Zhang Lin has only worked for 10 months, and the stocks that have not yet arrived have come to naught.
No one has been able to sort out the basis for the layoffs. Whether it was a former sales champion, a veteran employee, a winner of various honors, a young person, a new employee, or a person with low performance, they were all pushed into a neat layoff process.
In North America, Tesla's 500-person supercharging team was disbanded. Musk still plans to expand the Supercharger network, but the pace of expansion of new locations will be slower, with more focus on maintaining existing sites and machine operations;
About 40 people in the advertising marketing team were fired, less than a year after Musk announced the launch of traditional ads, a decision he reversed because "these ads are so general — any car can be applied." It was previously reported that Tesla will lay off a total of 6,020 employees in Texas and California.
In Germany, Tesla is laying off 400 workers at its factory near Berlin and is working on a voluntary employee leave plan to avoid forced layoffs. Tesla said it would negotiate with the working committee to implement the plan.
Those in high positions and who have made important contributions to Tesla are not immune.
The layoffs came hours before Drew Baglino, who had worked at Tesla for 18 years and worked his way up from a software engineer to a senior vice president, leading the construction of Tesla's battery factory and the development of new models such as the Model Y and the Cybertruck. Rohan Patel, vice president of public policy and commerce, also left the company.
In the days that followed, Martin Viecha, vice president of investor relations, Allie Arebalo, senior director of human resources, and Daniel Ho, head of the new car project, left.
Obviously, the number of layoffs does not stop at 10%. In email after email, Musk became more and more violent, tough, and uncompromising, warning that "most executives have not taken [layoffs seriously] so far" and that if there are more than 3 unqualified employees on the team, go with the employees.
The director, Rebecca Tinucci, is being fired for this. According to reports, she was dissatisfied with Musk's proposal to lay off part of the supercharging team, so Musk simply fired the entire team.
The people who were laid off were thankful at first. Drew Baglino and Musk left a heartwarming interaction in X; Rohan Patel's feelings on this day are "immensely grateful"; A North American employee who slept in his car and took a shower in the factory wrote down his thoughts on the day he left his job, "When you leave, you want to make the place better than it was." He quoted Iron Man Stark in The Avengers, "The end is also part of the journey." ”
A veteran Tesla employee who was laid off was "very surprised and very moved" by the "helpful, enthusiastic, and calm professionalism" of his Indian colleagues, and they actively helped him connect with work, provide visas and other help; On social media, many people record the moment of "getting off the boat" full of "reluctance" and "no regrets".
But as the layoffs continued, so did hesitation and discontent. "Even if you get a big gift package, you don't want to be laid off," said some of the people interviewed, who worried that they didn't know when their next job would come up. Those who have moved and rented houses because of their Tesla jobs need to re-establish a new order of life.
Wider groups have also been caught up in the storm of layoffs. In China, Tesla withdrew all offers from fresh graduates and paid one month of liquidated damages. "Draw salary from the bottom of the kettle", a fresh graduate who broke his contract commented, due to the end of the spring recruitment, he fell into a huge confusion about the future. In North America, a large number of summer interns have also suddenly lost their internship opportunities – although revoking an internship offer may not save much money.
Rich Otto, the head of product launches at Tesla for nearly seven years, announced his departure, slamming the layoffs for "shaking the company's morale" and preventing him from seeing the company's long-term growth, "Great companies are made up of great people and great products, and great products are only possible when their people thrive." So he chose to leave.
According to foreign media reports, Tesla disclosed in a regulatory material that it will record more than $350 million in layoff costs for this global layoff in the second quarter.
Lost in the Chinese market
Many people can feel that Tesla is falling behind in the domestic competition.
Fang Daquan remembers that in the past, when sales peaked, up to two or three hundred cars could be delivered a day. If it goes well, a large number of vehicles can be handed over in 5 minutes. The location of the underground parking lot is full of customer vehicles that are about to drive away, and a steady stream of new cars can only be driven in after a batch is handed over. However, after the end of this year, the situation is much more deserted, and the underground parking lot is often parked with existing cars waiting to be sold.
Inventory is increasing. Initially, after the Shanghai plant was put into operation, deliveries were even greater than production for a time. In the third quarter of 2022, the inventory rose to 22,000 units, compared to 55,000 units that year. From 2023 to the first quarter of this year, the inventory is still hovering at 50,000 units. Tesla's CFO expects to increase inventories in the second quarter of this year.
It has been eight and five years since the Model 3 and Model Y were introduced, and although they have been refreshed with minor facelifts, the aging models have struggled to arouse interest. In China, the endless stream of new products is no longer enough, from Xpeng P7, BYD Seal, Zeekrypton 007 to Xiaomi SU7, the products of these two models have been put on the market one after another.
The price reduction is valid for a short period of time. At the beginning of 2023, Tesla will cut the price of domestic models on sale in China in an attempt to strangle competitors with low prices. Model 3 and Model Y dropped to 229,900 yuan and 309,900 yuan, which were considered to be "the lowest in history", and the official website was instantly crowded.
Domestic car companies once fell into a panic, and the stock prices of the new forces in Hong Kong stocks dived. But by the end of 2023, BYD has taken over as the dominant player in the price war, surpassing Tesla in global sales and becoming the new king of the market. This year, with the arrival of the Xiaomi SU7, the people who challenged Tesla have a new face.
Tesla's full-year gross profit margin fell to 18.2%, down 7.35 percentage points from 2022. Frequent price adjustments quickly fail to arouse consumer enthusiasm, and people are tired of seeing the permutations and combinations of insurance subsidies, welfare activities, and price increases.
In the first quarter of this year, Tesla sold 159,000 vehicles in China, a year-on-year increase of 15.2%, accounting for 41% of total sales. The Chinese market is still an important part of Tesla. However, compared with the overall growth rate of 26% in China's new energy vehicle market, Tesla has underperformed the market.
Overall, Tesla delivered 380,000 vehicles in the first quarter, which rarely fell below the 400,000 mark. The smell of weak demand is spreading.
The new product Cybertruck is still in the stage of capacity climbing, and in April this year, foreign media reported that the Cybertruck currently has the capacity to produce 1,000 units per week. Musk spoke of frustration as "extremely difficult" for mass production, and he expects production capacity to be ramped up to 250,000 units by 2025. At this rate, it will take at least 8 years to complete the 2 million orders in hand.
On the other hand, due to China's ban on pickup trucks on the road, the Cybertruck is not yet able to enter the Chinese market. In January this year, eight Cybertrucks were on static display in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu and Chongqing. According to Tesla's official website in China, the rear-wheel drive version is expected to be launched in China in 2025. In a short period of time, in the face of fierce competition in the second largest market, Tesla sighed.
The 4680 battery, which has been prepared for electric pickup trucks and affordable models, is also stuck in mass production.
In 2020, Musk released a cylindrical battery with a single cell diameter of 46mm and a height of 80mm, which is scheduled to be put into production in 2022. Compared to the previous battery version, the 4680 battery has higher energy density, better performance and range. What's more, it can save up to 50% of the cost.
However, the battery's production capacity has also run into serious problems, with annual production supporting only 24,000 Cybertrucks, a tenth of the planned truck production. At present, the production efficiency of the 4680 battery is only 1/3 of what is expected, the energy density is 20% lower than expected, and the cost is much higher than Musk's requirements. At the end of last year, Tesla began discussions about switching to lithium iron phosphate batteries from CATL and LG in affordable cars.
The list of layoffs in one round after another is also mostly concentrated in the battery production line. After the departure of Drew Baglino, who is in charge of energy, the new head Bonne Eggleston arrived and announced a new task to complete the cost reduction target by the end of the year - Tesla's own 4680 batteries are cheaper than similar batteries purchased from suppliers such as Panasonic and LG Energy Solution.
However, this may still be higher than the market price of mainstream battery manufacturers. According to the information of many engineers and industry insiders, the cost of the 4680 battery may still be in the range of 0.8-1 yuan/Wh, which is twice that of CATL and BYD batteries. Relying on battery technology innovation to reduce the cost of the whole vehicle is no longer viable.
Since the beginning of this year, Tesla's stock price has fallen by 35%, and its market value has evaporated by $30 billion. "Tesla is in the middle of two major growth waves," Musk euphemistically acknowledged the current trough.
His description of the Chinese market has also changed, from "they work hardest and smartest, and some companies from China are most likely to be second only to Tesla" to "If there were no tariffs or trade barriers, Chinese automakers would likely overwhelm the vast majority of their competitors in the world." ”
The sluggish transformation of Europe and the United States
Compared with China's fierce competition, the situation in North America and Europe is not optimistic.
The U.S. government is reducing its support for electric vehicles. In the last two days, the final version of the Inflation Reduction Act was released, and electric vehicles sold in the United States containing battery components made or assembled in China are not eligible for tax credits, with a maximum amount of about $7,500.
At the end of March, the U.S. government lowered its target for battery vehicles, with EVs accounting for 35% of new vehicle sales by 2032, up from 67% previously, and the new vehicle emissions regulations are much more lenient than those released in April last year — the 2032 emissions reduction target remains unchanged, but the 2027-2029 emissions reduction target is lowered.
According to US media analysis, in order to protect the interests of traditional automakers and win more votes in the hands of auto unions, the United States has slowed down the pace of electrification transformation.
In Europe, Germany also ended the maximum electric car subsidy of 6,750 euros at the end of last year, and the sales of electric vehicles almost halved in the month when the policy was introduced; The Swedish government lowers fuel taxes. Pure electric is no longer the only option in Europe and the United States.
Major car companies are starting to adjust their layout. Ford stressed that "the next generation of Ford electric vehicles will only be launched if they can be profitable", and the long-established car company pinned its hopes on hybrid models and planned to launch more hybrid products; Audi has also announced that it will not seek to maximize the production of electric vehicles, but will promote both internal combustion engines and plug-in hybrid models; Mercedes-Benz's full electrification will be changed to 2030, with 50% of sales of pure electric and hybrid models.
Musk recently commented that many car companies are wrong in the long run to go back to hybrid and range extension when facing difficulties. Earlier, tech giant Apple's decision to abandon car building also made his situation even more lonely.
And his pressure is not only on the change of policy orientation, but also on the people, the conflict between old and new ideas is more intense.
In Germany, plans to expand the gigafactory also continue to be stymied. In March 2022, the gigafactory officially opened on an area of 300 hectares and will produce at least 500,000 new cars and batteries per year. In February this year, the plant's weekly production capacity reached 6,000 vehicles.
As early as when the factory was put into operation, Musk planned to expand 100 hectares to build a freight station, a logistics area and a kindergarten for workers, among other things. The expansion would require the cutting down of large swaths of forest, which has been met with strong opposition from environmentalists, who are also concerned about the impact on local water resources.
To stop the expansion, opponents set fire to the substations around Tesla's factory. The destruction of the electrical circuit caused the German gigafactory to stop production for more than ten days. The head of Tesla's German factory said that more than 1,000 vehicles per day could not roll off the assembly line during the shutdown, "which means up to nine figures for us".
Musk was furious, scolding "stopping the production of electric cars instead of fossil fuel vehicles, either being the stupidest eco-terrorist in the world, or the puppet of other traditional energy beneficiaries of energy."
In recent days, environmentalists have once again launched protests. According to German media reports, 1,200 demonstrators gathered outside the factory gates, and some masked protesters even forced their way through the police cordon before being effectively controlled.
The expansion, which lasted nearly two years, is still pending. In mid-February, local citizens rejected the expansion proposal in an advisory vote, although it still needs to be approved by the local government.
The second person is rescued in the line of fire
In the midst of the crisis, Tesla is making drastic adjustments, improving product strength, and recovering the Chinese market.
Market sources said that recently, Zhu Xiaotong has been transferred back to China and returned to Shanghai to work. This Chinese executive, who always walks by Musk's side, has been given various titles by the outside world, he is "Musk's successor", "the person second only to Elon Musk in Tesla", and the person who can best implement "Musk's first principles".
Born in China and graduated from New Zealand, Zhu worked in North Africa for nearly two years before joining Tesla. This experience caught the attention of Wu Bixuan, the president of China at the time. She invited Zhu Xiaotong to join and be responsible for the construction of Tesla's supercharging stations in China.
The communication and management experience accumulated in North Africa has helped Zhu Xiaotong to complete the task excellently, building nearly 40 super charging stations and more than 600 destination charging piles in China.
In December 2014, Zhu Xiaotong succeeded Wu Bixuan as Tesla's global vice president and president of China, promoting the construction of experience stores, service centers, Shanghai Lingang factory and other projects. When the Shanghai factory was affected by the epidemic, Zhu Xiaotong slept in the factory for two consecutive months, working late at night at a standing desk. Employees refer to Zhu Xiaotong as "Lao Zhu" or "Tom". In 2022, Tesla produced more than 710,000 vehicles in China, accounting for 52% of global production.
Zhu Xiaotong, who appeared in the factory, usually wears reflective clothing and a safety helmet. "A lot of things need to be done yourself, and you can't have your hands too clean," he explains his outfit. Other times, Tesla's cultural shirt is his hallmark, "Don't waste resources and time on bells and whistles."
In many interviews, we can see Zhu Xiaotong like this: lean, flat-headed, with square-rimmed glasses, standard Mandarin, and extremely fast speech. It is rumored that he is extremely energetic and hardly has to sleep, and some people are curious to verify it in an interview, and Zhu Xiaotong will seriously reply, "I will sleep for two hours, but sometimes I am so stressed that I don't have time to sleep." ”
He described himself as an "ascetic" with an indomitable will. He also recounted the story of how he and his colleagues climbed onto the roof of the factory with plastic buckets of water to drain water on a stormy day. "I'm a person who doesn't give up easily, and I'm determined to complete a project, no matter how difficult it is."
In the eyes of many, the executive, whom Musk admires, has similar qualities to Musk himself: hardworking, self-disciplined, and highly enthusiastic about his work. Some people who have worked with him use "sharp" to describe Zhu Xiaotong's work style. And Zhu Xiaotong also commented that Musk is a "resolute and demanding" person, "Such a difficult thing, if it is a very soft person, I don't want to do it with him." ”
With Tesla's expansion in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore, Zhu Xiaotong was further promoted to president of the Asia Pacific region. At the end of 2022, Musk sent him to Austin to solve the production capacity problem of the Texas factory. According to a proxy filed in April last year, Mr. Zhu has become a senior vice president of the auto business and is one of Tesla's top four executives, along with Elon Musk, Drew Baglino and Zachary Kirkhorn, the other three being Mr. Musk, Drew Baglino and Zachary Kirkhorn, the chief executive officer.
Although there was no official announcement, the outside world tacitly assumed that this is the most likely person to succeed Musk. During this period, Musk was busy acquiring Twitter and laying out the future of mankind on Mars. At the end of 2022, Tesla's stock price plummeted, and investors complained that the CEO's energy was severely distracted.
For this, Musk defended, saying, "I may have been at Tesla's Texas Gigafactory yesterday and Starbase launch base today, but I have Tesla in mind all the time." ”
Now, with the return of Zhu Xiaotong, the Chinese market may usher in a drastic adjustment. And Elon Musk has finally decided to refocus on Tesla. Among the four major executives, one left, one was "demoted", and the power and responsibility were all in their hands.
On April 20, he abruptly announced on the X platform that he had postponed his scheduled trip to India "due to Tesla's very onerous obligations." A few days later, Musk's private jet landed on Chinese soil.
Autonomous driving completes the product map
In less than 24 hours, Musk brought significant progress on autonomous driving. This is the direction he has been firmly investing in, "Even if aliens kidnap me tomorrow, Tesla will solve the problem of self-driving." ”
The first is the FSD entry into China that has been bounced for a long time. Last year, Musk's visit to China was also believed to be to solve problems such as the implementation of the FSD project, but in the end it was in vain. This year, on the day of Musk's arrival, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced that 6 companies, including Tesla, and 76 models meet the 4 compliance requirements for automotive data security. The Model 3 and Model Y are the only foreign-funded models that comply with the regulations, and the restrictions on the use of Tesla in various parts of China have been lifted one after another.
The rumors of cooperation with Baidu also make people see the possibility of FSD landing. 36Kr quoted people familiar with the matter as saying, "Baidu gave Tesla a version number for the navigation map and the Gaofu map respectively." "The two companies are working together on in-vehicle navigation maps, advanced driver assistance maps, and compliance clouds. In 2021, Tesla set up a data center in Shanghai to achieve localized data storage.
Baidu and Tesla did not respond to rumors of a partnership. Regarding FSD's entry timetable into China, Musk replied to questions from netizens on April 20 and said that it may be realized soon. On the 29th, when Musk returned to the United States, the purchase description of Tesla's FSD service in China on Tesla's user app changed from "to be launched later" to "coming soon".
The FSD12 version, released last year, sparked the market's imagination – removing 300,000 lines of code and using neural networks to control the vehicle end-to-end, bringing GPT moments in the visual route. Musk said that FSD beta users have driven a total of 190 million miles (about 306 million kilometers), and in the future, it will be far safer than human drivers, reaching a 10-fold safety level.
The end-to-end route has also attracted many car companies to follow. Huawei has launched the basic version of HUAWEI ADS, a visual intelligent driving solution that implements intelligent assisted driving and intelligent parking on high-speed urban expressways across the country. This scheme is also applied in the Pro rear-wheel drive version of the second-released Zhijie S7; The Weilai sub-brand has also recently been exposed to the intelligent driving solution of using a single orin and lidar-free.
Tesla has been in China for 10 years, and once FSD is implemented in China, the market potential will undoubtedly lead to reverie. On the one hand, 1.7 million car owners are able to provide sufficient training data to continuously optimize the algorithm. On the other hand, it may be the catalyst for the explosion of smart driving in China, just as Tesla did to the electric vehicle market back then. With the news, Tesla's stock price has skyrocketed by 15%, and its market value has surged by 600 billion yuan.
At present, Tesla's algorithm is leading the domestic level, and it is expected to reach 100EFLOPS in October this year.
Musk said, "Tesla will invest about $10 billion this year in AI training and inference, and inference is mainly used in cars." He also said that Tesla could be the company with the second largest number of Nvidia H100 GPUs, behind Meta and xAI in third place. This means that Tesla's number of chips could exceed 30,000.
When it comes to autonomous driving, Musk has greater business ambitions. The second purpose of the visit to China was to seek Tesla's Robotaxi into China.
According to Reuters, Tesla plans to launch a Robotaxi service in Shanghai and test FSD. Some departing employees revealed to foreign media that Musk saw the early research and development results of Robotaxi and decided to launch Robotaxi first, and the affordable model 2 was at least temporarily shelved.
Originally, the Model 2 would launch a prototype in April this year, and production will officially start in the second half of 2025, with a price set at $25,000, or $150,000 to $200,000. The Robotaxi was planned later than the Model 2.
Musk has once again disrupted the original plan. "He's like using a barge as a speedboat." A former mid-level manager said that if the product sequence is reversed, the new car development and manufacturing teams will have to recalibrate their plans in the coming weeks in an effort to ensure that the Robotaxi is brought to market by the second half of 2025.
Not long ago, Musk confirmed on the X platform that "Tesla Robotaxi will be unveiled on August 8." He said 8 is a lucky number in China.
And this will also stir up the domestic Robotaxi market. In China, Pony.ai, WeRide, Baidu and many other companies have carried out unmanned manned pilot or commercial operations.
Whether it is the launch of FSD or Robotaxi, there are still many problems that need to be solved in the process of official landing. The only thing that can be confirmed is that Tesla's cooperation with China has a huge imagination.
In this turbulent situation, Tesla is also brewing the next growth pole - no longer an electric vehicle company, but has completed the transformation to an artificial intelligence or hard-core AI company.
And all this happens also depends on the Chinese market.