Whether it is because of the epidemic or the shortage of spare parts, in the past Three months, almost half of the car manufacturers have been affected, except for Tesla. In March, Tesla's wholesale sales were 65,814 units, an increase of 85% year-on-year; in the first quarter of 2022, Tesla's cumulative sales exceeded 180,000 units, reaching 182174.
Among them, Tesla Model Y, which accounted for the majority of sales, sold nearly 40,000 vehicles in March, an increase of 114% month-on-month and a year-on-year increase of 291.4%. From January to March, the cumulative sales volume reached 74,681 units, an increase of 354.8% year-on-year, and the sales volume in March and the first quarter ranked first in the list of new energy SUVs.
It is worth noting that this is already Tesla's 7 consecutive months of sales of more than 50,000 vehicles, at the same time, this is also the second time Tesla sales exceeded 60,000 vehicles, and this sales exceeded 60,000 vehicles or with the epidemic and successive price increases.
From the perspective of sales, Tesla has indeed created one record after another, but from the perspective of products, is Tesla really worth paying for by consumers?
Of the 60,000 units sold, the "Tesla" sign accounted for half of the credit
Nearly 10 years have passed since the first Tesla entered China. In these 10 years, the name Tesla is almost a household name, and everyone knows that this is a different new energy vehicle brand.
So what's the difference? In 2012, when the domestic auto market was still in its infancy, Tesla launched its second luxury electric coupe, the Model S, which sold for nearly one million and zero hundred and 4.4 seconds. This was unprecedented in the new energy market at that time and even the entire automobile market, so Tesla established the label of high-end, fashionable and technological.
In order to create a high-end "human design", Tesla has made a lot of efforts. Especially at the marketing level, it belongs to the typical series of fear of making things small, and its classic public relations words: "We will never compromise" are also common. Using the Internet, personal IP, and public sentiment, no matter how good things are, Tesla has achieved the point where "no one in the world knows".
There is no doubt that Tesla wants to be a BBA-like luxury car company, in addition to the product itself, but also wants to enhance the brand premium by passing on added value. And it is precisely with such unusual product thinking and marketing concepts that Tesla has created a high-end brand image. Now, many people even use Tesla as a "stepping stone" to enter a higher circle. Therefore, a large part of the people who buy Tesla now are going to the Tesla brand.
Product advantages are slowly waning
It's okay to use the brand to increase the premium of the product, but if there is no upper limit of the premium, the result may be really uncertain, especially if the product itself has various problems.
As we all know, the workmanship of domestic Tesla has been complained about, and the body gaps, material texture, and NVH performance have not actually reached the standard of a 300,000 high-end electric vehicle. In addition, events such as the previous explosion of "sunroof leakage" and "brake failure" have actually made consumers suspicious of it. In this case, Tesla is still raising the price, which is actually consuming its "brand aura".
Recall that when Tesla Model 3 and Model Y first came out, the entire pure electric vehicle market did not have many choices. At that time, their pricing was relatively low, especially when the Model 3 was just domestic, it was more than 100,000 or 200,000 cheaper than the imported version, giving people the illusion that domestic Tesla was very cheap. And at that time, Tesla on the one hand had a brand aura blessing, on the other hand, it was indeed more mature in the three-electric system and driver assistance technology. With the arrival of more and more mature products today, Tesla's advantages will undoubtedly slowly weaken.
Capacity is the most realistic reason
In the context of "lack of core" and the serious epidemic, almost all automobile brands have been affected, especially electric vehicles known for their intelligence, and their production capacity has been greatly reduced. In this case of "everyone is not happy", Tesla has certain advantages in production capacity due to its unique supply chain system and software research and development capabilities, which is also an important reason for its ability to maintain sales growth.
In 2021, Tesla's annual production capacity has exceeded 1.22 million units. Among them, Tesla's Shanghai factory has an annual production capacity of 470,000 vehicles, accounting for almost 50% of Tesla's global production, and Tesla's Shanghai factory supplies to Europe and other parts of Asia in addition to supplying the Chinese domestic market.
In March, Tesla was able to achieve such results in the face of a serious epidemic, and a very important reason was that it chose to deliver domestic users in March and did not allocate production capacity to meet the needs of overseas markets. This has enabled domestic deliveries to remain stable despite the impact of the epidemic.
It is understood that due to the epidemic, Tesla's Shanghai factory experienced two shutdowns in March, which caused about 2200-2500 new cars per day to reduce production, and the most recent shutdown lasted until April 18. However, even if Shanghai resumes work, production capacity will not catch up so quickly, and it is expected that it will not be achieved until mid-May if it wants to return to the previous level.
It can also be seen from Tesla's official website that the current model 3's expected delivery date has been postponed to 20-24 weeks, and the pick-up time is nearly half a year, and the model Y's expected delivery date is 10-14 weeks. Therefore, combining the above factors, in the next April and May, the impact of Tesla's shutdown is expected to be more obvious.