Tesla "crazy discount"
2022 was a year for Tesla investors to cry: stock prices fell by 65%, and the market value lost as much as $675 billion.
Tesla's market value declined, Musk sold stocks for acquisition, and Twitter's valuation was significantly lowered by investors, which further led to a serious decline in Musk's value.
According to statistics, Musk's net worth has been reduced by at least $200 billion from the highest level - which also makes him the first and only billionaire in human history to shrink his worth by $200 billion.
On December 16 last year, Ross Gerber, who has held Tesla shares for many years, tweeted, "Tesla's market value has shrunk by $600 billion, but the board of directors does nothing, which is completely unacceptable!" ”
Who expected that this tweet was seen by Musk, Twitter's new boss, who replied with three points: "Tesla's management is better than ever, we can't control the Fed, that's the real problem." ”
Even bigger than Tesla's stock price discount problem is that Tesla sales are also discounting wildly. In terms of pricing strategy, Tesla has shifted from "cost pricing" to "demand pricing", at least in China.
According to analyst Troy Teslike, Tesla's order pool began to decline since July last year, and in just five months, Tesla's global order pool fell from 476,000 to 163,000 vehicles, and the Chinese market has fallen off a cliff since September.
So what else to do, Tesla can only start the price reduction method to fall into the "money refund" storm again, incarnating as "leeks". After this price reduction, the prices of Tesla's models have hit a record low. Among them, the Model 3 standard battery life version fell from 265,900 yuan in October to 229,900 yuan, down 36,000 yuan; while the Model Y rear-wheel drive version dropped from 288,900 yuan to 259,900 yuan, down 20,000 yuan. Tesla has its own explanation for the price cut, and it is by no means a problem of sales not working.
Tesla's vice president of external affairs Tao Lin said on Weibo on January 6 that the price reduction is based on "first principles" and insists on cost pricing. "Tesla's history of several relatively large price adjustments, are because of external reasons to have a certain impact on costs, such as we have become a domestic car, the price will definitely be lower than pure imports, for example, after our supply chain is stable, it will definitely be lower than before shipped from abroad."
What Tesla officials say may not be false, but it is obviously difficult to answer why Tesla's sales continue to decline. In the past, Tesla, the delivery volume was only limited by the production volume, as long as the production can meet the standard, there is no car that cannot be sold. Tesla, which has been unable to keep up with sales in the past, will have production exceeding sales for 3/4 of 2022.
In the end, Musk's delivery target of 50% year-on-year growth for 2022 was not achieved, and Tesla completed the delivery of 1.31 million units in 2022, a year-on-year increase of only 40%. So obviously, Tesla has been slow-selling, which is the reason for the price cut. Liu Qi, chief analyst of the TMT industry at Toubao Research Institute, believes that because of the overcapacity of Tesla's Shanghai factory, the market has long expected its price cut, but the final reduction still exceeds expectations.
So why doesn't Tesla love the market? Tesla Model 3 has been on the market for 6 years, and has not launched a new generation of models or even remodeled, the driving range of the rear-wheel drive version of the main sales model CLTC is only 556 kilometers, in the face of six or seven hundred kilometers of domestic electric vehicles is really not enough. In contrast, some domestic brands even push multiple new cars a year, and the various data are dazzling.
In terms of public opinion, it can be said that domestic brands have moisture, but sales will not lie. Traditional car companies are frantically counterattacking, based on data from January to November 2022, SAIC's new energy vehicle sales have doubled as Tesla's, GAC, Changan, Geely, etc. have also grown rapidly at a rate of more than 100%, while Tesla's growth curve is difficult to maintain.
In addition, BYD's high growth last year also put great pressure on Tesla. On January 10, the Passenger Association released the 2022 sales data and the top ten car companies. BYD surpassed FAW-Volkswagen's 1.802 million units with 1.863 million units (wholesale volume), becoming the sales champion in the Chinese auto market for the first time.
According to Gascar Observation, in terms of cumulative sales in the first 11 months of 2022, BYD and Tesla are in the top position, but BYD will lead Tesla's sales of more than 400,000 vehicles, and BYD will undoubtedly become the world's best-selling electric vehicle brand in 2022.
So much so that former Tesla director Steve Wesley once said that for the first time he thought Tesla had a real challenger, that is, BYD. He said BYD could reach one million EV production/sales this year, while Ford had 60,000 and GM was working to reach 50,000. "So now it looks like Tesla and China (giants) are pitted."
Doomed to a tragic 2023
On January 10, data released by the Passenger Association showed that the wholesale sales of new energy passenger vehicles in 2022 were 6.498 million units and retail sales were 5.674 million units, up 96.3% and 90% year-on-year, respectively, and the new energy penetration rate of passenger cars (the ratio of retail sales of new energy vehicles to retail sales of passenger cars) of passenger cars in 2022 reached 27.6%, an increase of 12.6 percentage points over 2021.
However, the lack of cores, the high cost of lithium batteries, and fierce market competition have made new energy vehicle companies in a high-voltage state. In 2023, with the withdrawal of "national subsidies", the new energy vehicle industry will face new changes. The "new forces" of car manufacturing, which are still losing money, may accelerate into the knockout round.
At present, there are already car companies "left behind". At the end of 2022, Li Yinan, who bears the name of "Huawei's former prince", announced that his first product "Ziyujia NV" after transforming into a car could not be delivered in the short term. And WM Motor and Singularity Automobile also reported urgent news of capital chain in 2022.
Tesla's sudden price cut is like "disrupting" to accelerate the exit of the industry. The real pressure may be the new forces represented by "Wei Xiaoli". In the first three quarters of 2022, "Wei Xiaoli" lost 8.712 billion yuan, 6.778 billion yuan and 2.269 billion yuan respectively. According to official delivery data, the sales of the above three car companies in 2022 are still bright, with year-on-year increases of 34%, 23% and 47% respectively. However, compared with the target at the beginning of the year, the final sales completion rate was only 78.38%, 48.3% and 81.66%, respectively.
In the early stage of the development of new forces, the market paid more attention to how much incremental space there was, but when sales reached a certain scale, it would pay attention to the supply chain integration ability and cost control ability of car companies, after all, the automotive industry is a field with strong scale effect. In addition, in recent years, the competition from traditional car companies has become stronger and stronger, and the market will reconsider how deep the moat is between the new forces and traditional car companies, and when will they achieve profitability. This is all a difficult problem in front of the new forces in car manufacturing, since it has passed the annual production of 200,000 vehicles, it should show a successful performance to cross the river.
As NIO Li Bin said in his internal letter, NIO's delivery growth rate lagged far behind the overall growth rate of the market; In response to fluctuations in demand, the company does not adjust in time and causes unnecessary losses; After the launch of new cars, software and hardware quality problems affect product reputation; The closed-loop speed of solving problems is far from user expectations, and so on. Li Bin's reflection is very sincere, and it is also a real problem, and it is not an exaggeration to say that any one that is not done well in the future is a fatal hidden danger. Standing at the beginning of the new year, it is okay to sing high-profile chicken blood, but the market has less and less patience and expectations for new forces. This sincerity is "the autumn of critical survival".
Of course, there are also some brands choose to rise prices against the trend at this time, according to incomplete statistics, BYD announced that the price of vehicles will be increased by 2000-6000 yuan, some models of Extreme Krypton will be increased by 1000 yuan, geometric brand models will be raised by 3000-6000 yuan, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen's ID. series models will be raised by 6600 yuan, and GAC Aion will be raised by 3000-8000 yuan.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the price increase is on the one hand due to the cost of subsidy withdrawal, on the other hand, it is more like a "panic marketing" to lock in sales at the end of 2022. This also means that relevant manufacturers may strategically abandon January and even the first quarter of 2023.
However, when it comes to Tesla, which "does not talk about martial virtue" at the beginning of the year, their considerations may be discounted, and Tesla, which has reduced its price to the lowest price in history, has obtained 30,000 orders in just a few days. For some car companies, they can't just raise prices and announce price cuts, and it seems that the results of the first quarter will be very interesting under the frontal battle.
How to get back to trillions of dollars
The price reduction will damage the brand value to a certain extent, this is certain, but the market is hugely divided on the effect of Tesla's price reduction, and many people are worried that it will be a loss of money.
According to the analysis of open source securities, Tesla's price reduction in 2023 has a significant impact on profits, and the net profit elasticity range in different scenarios is 13.4-17.1 billion US dollars.
However, it is worth noting that the decline in net profit only causes Tesla to make less money, and will not have a substantial impact.
Gao Chao, a researcher of the China Autonomous Driving Industry Innovation Alliance, quoted by the Securities Daily as saying that from the perspective of the net interest rate level and bicycle profit that has been mastered, Tesla still has room for price reduction of about 10%. However, most domestic new energy vehicle companies are still in a state of "burning money", and there is a dilemma between them and not: he, there is no profit in the first place; If you don't follow, sales will drop significantly. Therefore, Tesla's wave of price cuts is still under control, but it may not be for the new forces of car manufacturing. Can price cuts bring Tesla back to king? Not necessarily, but it can help Tesla temporarily get out of the slow-selling situation.
An industry insider said that a relatively simple and crude criterion for judging Tesla's performance trend next year is whether the delivery volume can maintain a growth rate of 50%, and if so, there is still hope to hit trillions of dollars. Tesla plans to sell 20 million vehicles a year by 2030. To achieve this, the company needs to build at least 10 more gigafactories, and it is a difficult task to quickly increase production capacity within a one-year deadline after the plant is inaugurated.
At the same time, Wall Street generally lowered its expectations for Tesla. Analysts expect its production in 2023 may not exceed 2 million vehicles.
Tesla's current urgent problems are the following aspects, when the new product will be launched, Tesla needs to determine who is at the helm, when the new factory will be in place, and when the new technology will be launched.
In terms of new products, according to Tesla stock analyst Loup Ventures, in order not to affect the sales of Model 3, the entry-level new car Model 2 may be officially announced in early 2024, and then mass production may be launched in the middle of 2025, with a price of $25,000, equivalent to about 171,300 yuan.
The second is the official launch of the new Tesla Model X/S in China.
Renderings of the new Model S
The all-new Model S dual-motor all-wheel drive version starts at 789,900 yuan, and the Model S Plaid three-motor all-wheel drive version starts at 1,009,900 yuan. The new Model X dual-motor all-wheel drive version starts at 879,900 yuan, and the Model X Plaid three-motor all-wheel drive version starts at 1,039,900 yuan.
According to the sales data of traditional luxury car brands, it has been in a tepid state in recent years, and Model X/S has a greater role in re-establishing the image of Tesla's luxury brand.
As we all know, Musk is the CEO of Tesla, but Musk is still a competent CEO, before that, he was also responsible for the brain-computer interface Neuralink, space travel SpaceX, underground tunnel Boring Companies, Starlink Starlink, humanoid robot Optimus, solar Solarcity and many other companies.
Liao Kaiyuan, the most bullish retail investor who once regarded Musk as "the only person he wants to see in this world", is now publicly shouting on Twitter: "Musk abandoned Tesla, and now Tesla doesn't even have a handle!" Please, get down to business, who has the power to save Tesla? ”
From the day Musk bought Twitter shares, Tesla's stock price began to fall steadily. Tesla's share price was around $360 at the time, and by December 2022, it had fallen to $150, and long-term investors accused Musk's acquisition of Twitter as a farce that delayed too much Tesla's money and energy.
At the end of 2022, Musk asked users of the service in a "poll" whether he should step down as Twitter CEO and said he would abide by the voting results. The answer for most people is yes. A few days later, Musk said he would step down as Twitter's CEO, "as long as I find someone stupid enough to take the job!" But he also said he will continue to manage the team responsible for the software and servers.
So who would this stupid enough guy be? At present, Musk has not given a clear answer, but Zhu Xiaotong, the former president of Greater China, was promoted to global vice president and took over the sales service and delivery business in North America, and gradually had the possibility of becoming a global CEO close to the core.
Regarding the new factory, Musk needs to add ten more factories to achieve the goal of 20 million cars by 2030 to lay the foundation for capacity climbing. But the Berlin plant, which opened last year, originally planned to produce 5,000 vehicles a week by the end of last year or the beginning of this year, but in fact, until the end of last year, this number was only 3,000 vehicles, and if the production capacity climbed poorly, it would not only affect costs, but also affect the delivery cycle, thus affecting performance.
In addition, not only new factories will have problems, Tesla's main factories around the world, including the Shanghai Gigafactory, the Fremont headquarters Gigafactory, and the Texas Gigafactory, have experienced insufficient production capacity. The adjustment of the industrial chain, the layout of production lines, and the training of workers are all a process of repeated tossing, and stable and reliable capacity output is very difficult to do.
Tesla has always been regarded as a catfish challenger in the industry, and its technical power has been imitated by domestic manufacturers. In the past two years, Tesla has demonstrated a lot of hard-core new technologies that are highly sought after, such as FSD chips, 4680 batteries, integrated die-casting and other technologies, the application of these technologies is also directly related to whether Tesla can successfully achieve revenue increase and cost reduction in the future, but at present, the progress seems to be less than expected.
But according to the University of California, San Diego research analysis, the performance of the 4680 battery is not better than the 21700 battery. In terms of energy density, the monomer energy density of the 4680 battery is only 244Wh/kg, which is lower than the monomer energy density data of 269Wh/kg of the Panasonic 21700 battery; Secondly, in terms of cost, the 4680 battery uses more cobalt metal, which will lead to the 4680 battery not having a significant advantage in cost due to the high price of cobalt metal.
Therefore, we should not only see the paper data improvement brought by new technologies, but also pay attention to various troubles and quality problems in actual implementation, most of the time technology is difficult to advance linearly, the road is always tortuous. Therefore, it is difficult to have a more objective evaluation of future production capacity based on these new technologies.
Tesla still has some variables
Tesla's robotics business and energy storage business have also attracted much attention. Let's talk about the robot business first, Musk believes that robots will eventually enter thousands of households, and the market space for robots will be much larger than Tesla. In April, Musk said in a public interview that Optimus was the "second curve" of Tesla's growth.
Tesla does humanoid robots, on the one hand, can further reduce the cost of parts, they have motors, batteries, do some core parts, can promote the industrialization of parts, batch, and reduce costs; On the other hand, the hardware development ability is strong, because they do automatic driving, and the computing power in hardware development is getting stronger and stronger, and they have laid a strong foundation.
According to the analysis of the machinery team of Tianfeng Securities, because the degree of freedom of humanoid robots is much higher than that of traditional robots, or it will bring about changes in the industrial chain, it is predicted that the market share of Tesla Bot in service robots is 20.00% (optimistic estimate) / 15.00% (neutral estimate) / 10.00% (pessimistic estimate). The sales scale of Tesla Bot in the field of service robots is 75.637 billion yuan (optimistic estimate) / 56.728 billion yuan (neutral estimate) / 37.819 billion yuan (pessimistic estimate).
Some institutions are even optimistic that mass production can be achieved in 2024 to replicate the road of Tesla vehicles, but the robot that can really serve the family requires more than 40 degrees of freedom (joints), the problem of electromechanical hardware power consumption has always been a worldwide problem (mainly the motor and its drive + reducer), Tesla motion software algorithm is still far from being completely practical It still takes time to overcome. So Tesla robots are still in the pre-dawn night, not at dawn.
Tesla's energy storage business can be subdivided into solar energy and energy storage devices, and currently there are mainly Powerwall, Powerpack, Megapack and other products for families, small and medium-sized enterprises, large enterprises and public institutions.
The Megapack is a major advancement in energy storage technology, offering a high level of scalability and capacities of up to 3 MWh. There is no need to build a natural gas peaking power plant and avoid power outages. Each unit can store more than 3 MWh of energy, enough to power 3,600 homes for one hour.
Although the volume is not very large, the market demand for Meagapack is strong, and it is said that orders are already scheduled for the third quarter of 2024. We can also see on the order page on Tesla's official website that a single Megapack currently has a capacity of about 3.9MWh and a power of about 1.9MW, and the delivery date has been scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024, selling for up to $2.6 million.
Megapack is likely to be a sleeping giant, with the Lathrop plant's 40GWh annual capacity achieved, Megapack will produce about 10,000 units per year, bringing Tesla a gross profit of $15 billion, and a net profit of about 50%, reaching $7.5 billion. This is much more profitable than Tesla selling cars.
But at present, there are two major factors that restrict the development of energy storage business, one is safety, Tesla Megapack has three fires with heavy losses, our domestic also because of a large-scale energy storage fire in Beijing, policy adjustment to a cautious attitude, so Tesla is also turning to the use of safer lithium iron phosphate batteries. On the other hand, the full shift to lithium iron phosphate batteries will surge in demand for lithium mines, and when new energy vehicles compete for high prices for lithium resources, it will seriously restrict the development speed of Tesla's energy storage business.
Write at the end
According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla's share of U.S. electric vehicle sales fell to 65 percent in the first nine months of last year, down from 79 percent in 2020. S&P expects that figure to be below 20% by 2025. Howorth said that as competitors produce more competitive models, "it's only natural that they [Tesla] can't maintain such a large market share in the electric vehicle space."
If Tesla's North American market loses, coupled with the weakness of the Chinese market, Tesla will have no way back. But then again, Musk the man has been questioning and ridiculing to create miracles, Tesla is not currently lacking miracles, just need a person to save Tesla from the chaotic state of disorder, it is enough to play its due strength.
Resources:
Tesla is not the next Apple Source: Lithium Cat Labs
Under the stall, how does Wei Xiaoli start again? Source: Parity
Will new energy vehicles become cheaper and cheaper? Source: Gascar
New energy ushered in the year of reshuffle Source: Modern Express
Tesla stock price continues to fall off a cliff Source: Silicon Starman
Tesla fell by 48,000! Pressure to domestic cars Source: Smart car reference
Tesla price reduction: to save the market value, first save the market Source: Yuanchuan Auto Review