If there is anything I regret these days, it is that I didn’t buy Tesla stocks some time ago! Since the beginning of 2020, the stock price of Tesla has risen from US$420 to a maximum of US$968, more than doubled. In contrast to the US stock market, the Tesla index of A-shares that we can buy. The index rose to 2768 points on February 18, 2020 at 1982 points in early December 2019, up nearly 40% in three months. If you could invest some money at that time, you can at least buy a golf now.
In terms of market value, as of February 25, 2020, the market value of Tesla reached US$146.953 billion, which has surpassed Volkswagen (about US$90 billion), becoming the world's second largest market value car company after Toyota (about US$190 billion). To this point, Tesla only took 17 years and used 4 cars. Now I will borrow these 4 cars to briefly tell you the development history of Tesla in the past 17 years.
Roadster stage (2003-2008): Hard to build cars, hard to survive
At the beginning of the 21st century, energy issues gradually became more and more important, and some visionary people began to turn their attention to electric cars again. So in 2003, Tesla was established. The two founders invited Musk to invest and join, and began a difficult road to build cars. In 2004, Tesla began to develop its first car, Roadster, a sports car that is positioned in the high-end market.
General technology + The electric vehicle technology used by the Lotus sports car
Roadster comes from the General Partner AC Propulsion, which is also the technology adopted by General Motors' first electric vehicle EV1, which can be said to be the "original" of all modern electric vehicles. The body structure and chassis of the Roadster come from the Lotus Elise. Although the appearance has been redesigned, the shadow of the Elise (right below) can still be seen faintly.
Innovative battery application
At that time, the general-purpose EV1 of the electric vehicle that was successfully mass-produced and sold on the market used an analog signal control system plus a lead-acid battery. This combination accelerated and had a low range. Therefore, Tesla decided to use a combination of digital control system and lithium battery. They chose Panasonic's 18650 battery (the kind of small battery that is a little larger than the No. 5 battery, one by one). After a complex combination, 6831 small batteries were combined into a battery board, which can greatly reduce the risk of short circuit and combustion of lithium batteries.
At the same time, Tesla also designed advanced battery management systems for these batteries, including energy management systems, fast charging systems, battery temperature cooling systems, etc., which greatly improves the battery life performance.
Five years of hard labor, selling a car at a loss
Mrs. Yin gave birth to Nezha after three years of pregnancy, but Roadster was even harder than Nezha. It started research and development in 2004 and did not start delivery until 2008. During this period, it was burning money, and the R&D expenses exceeded US$140 million. Tesla can only continue to raise funds. Moreover, due to the incorrect cost estimate, the original plan was $70,000 and the price was $100,000. Due to the improvement of the gearbox, the cost soared to 120,000 and the price became 110,000. Every Roadster was selling at a loss. However, this electric sports car with a speed of 3.7 seconds per 100 km/h, a maximum speed of 200 km/h and a cruising range of 350 km/h has completely refreshed people's understanding of electric cars. At this time, although Tesla is in financial difficulties, it has the opportunity to continue.
Model S stage (2008-2012): Making money crazy and getting through the crisis
Roadster gives people a preliminary high-end image of Tesla . They need a second car to enter the luxury car market, help Tesla stabilize the high-end image, and generate revenue for companies that have not made money. The chassis and body of this car have to be designed from scratch, which costs more, but the problem is that Tesla has no money.
Savior Musk
2006-2008, the amount on the Tesla account became less and less. While facing huge operating pressure, it was still burning money, but Tesla did not have enough credit limit to find a commercial bank to obtain loans. As the impact of the economic crisis in 2008, Tesla has reached the brink of life and death. Just a few hours before going bankrupt, Musk borrowed money everywhere and finally arranged a $40 million debt transaction for Tesla .
Do odd jobs for bigwigs
Tesla , which escaped the disaster, began to make good luck. At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, Daimler purchased 4,000 sets of Tesla battery systems. At that time, Daimler was looking for a supplier of Smart electric vehicles. Musk seized the opportunity and spent 8 weeks to convert a Smart Smart into an electric vehicle, showing Daimler his technical strength. This move impressed Chairman Daimler and decided to invest US$50 million in Tesla to acquire 10% of its shares. At the same time, he began to sign a sales order for the core components of Smart electric vehicles and established a strategic cooperative relationship with Tesla .
After Tesla also cooperates with Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and other companies to provide electric powertrain solutions for these old car companies. By doing odd jobs, Tesla survived for a while, but still did not have enough funds to build the Model S.
Support from the government
Established cooperation with veteran car companies such as Daimler and Toyota, allowing the US Department of Energy to see the value of Tesla . In June 2009, the US Department of Energy provided a low-interest loan of Tesla for Tesla . This money finally allowed Model S to start mass production plans. At the same time, the deposit for the reservation of Model S also began to be collected, which finally stabilized the financial situation of Tesla .
(The then-US President Obama visited the Tesla factory)
Tesla was listed
On June 29, 2010, Tesla successfully landed on the Nasdaq Exchange for listing and trading, with the issue price of US$17 per share. The stock rose by more than 40% on the day of issuance, and the public offering raised US$189 million. At this point, Tesla has become the first automobile company listed in the United States since Ford Motor Company in 1956, and finally there is no need to worry about money.
successfully created Model S and started to make money
solved the funding problem. Tesla can finally start manufacturing Model S. Model S adopts a brand new design: a smooth coupe-style body, simple interior with a large screen;
battery technology continues the Roadster-like 18650 battery pack; the motor uses a three-phase AC induction motor jointly developed and manufactured with Taiwan Futian Company. This electric car has super performance, Tesla Model The P85 version of S takes only 4.4 seconds to accelerate from 100 kilometers, and the maximum speed can reach 210km/h, but it has a battery life of 480km. After the delivery of
, such a car, was naturally sought after by the market, and also made Tesla finally profitable in 2013, and Tesla stocks also rose steadily.
Model X stage (2012-2016): Expansion, expansion, expansion, expansion
Model S's success has brought the development of Tesla to the fast lane, and the company has also begun to expand in all aspects.
expands the new energy industry chain
As the market share of electric vehicles gradually increases, Musk keenly realizes that the degree of perfection of the electric vehicle industry chain such as battery production and charging stations will directly affect the sales of Tesla models. Therefore, in June 2014, Tesla began building Tesla Gigafactory (Gigafactory) outside Reno, Nevada, with the goal of increasing lithium battery production and reducing battery costs.
At the same time, in order to solve the problem of user difficulty in charging, Tesla has also begun to vigorously build a charging network: as of December 2018, there were 1375 Tesla fast charging stations and 11,414 Tesla charging piles around the world; in 2014, Tesla launched the "destination charging" project, providing charging piles to hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, resorts and other places; in addition to fast charging stations and charging piles, as of 2015, Tesla has also built more than 100 super charging stations.
expands new energy business
At the same time, Tesla has not focused on the electric vehicle business. Its product line has covered the entire cycle of energy production, storage and use. For Tesla , the energy business is as important as the automobile business. Many people may not know that in addition to electric vehicle products, Tesla also has a series of product portfolios such as home energy storage products Powerwall, commercial and utility energy storage products Powerpack, household solar roof SolarRoof, commercial and utility solar products renewable microgrids, etc.
After completing the acquisition of Solarcity, Tesla announced the introduction of Panasonic's investment and large-scale expansion of Solarcity's factory in Buffalo, New York, and renamed it Gigafactory 2 for mass production of solar panels. After this series of operations, Tesla has transformed into a global vertically integrated energy company.
expands the automobile market
Of course, in this stage, Tesla did not abandon its old career. In February 2012, the prototype Model X was released. The stunning eagle wing door + 7-seat design instantly conquered many rich people; in December 2013, the Model S was introduced to China for sales, setting off a new trend of luxury electric cars, and the visibility on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai was extremely high; in September 2015, the Model X was officially launched and became a benchmark model for electric SUVs.
Model 3 stage (2016-to-present): Towards Volkswagen, capacity upgrade
Entering 2016, Tesla released the Model 3, which is more affordable. Unlike the previous models with high-end positioning, the demand is not large and the production capacity problem is not serious. However, the launch of Model 3, a model that is positioned as an entry-level model, means that , Tesla, , needs to have a larger layout in production capacity and supply chain to meet the needs of the mass market. Therefore, during 2016-2017, the amount of financing for Tesla soared significantly, and began to prepare funds in advance for the mass production of Model 3 from 2017-2018.
production capacity is difficult to climb
In terms of production and manufacturing, in 2017, Tesla acquired Grohmann Engineering for US$135 million. The factory is in a leading position in mechanical engineering and robot automation, which can help establish an automated production line for Model 3; in terms of supply chain, continuing the supply chain system of previous models, the core three-electric business of new energy vehicles is independently developed by Tesla or has full dominance in strategic cooperation with other companies. In July 2017, Tesla began mass production of Model 3.
However, some things cannot be solved by buying. The overly advanced robot assembly automation production line is not as efficient as manual assembly in some links; in addition, the battery module production line also has capacity problems, the unqualified raw materials are high, and the stamping production line also has defects. These problems seriously affected the mass production of Model 3, resulting in the delay of delivery time. After solving these problems, the production capacity of Model 3 finally reached the expected 5,000 units per week at the end of the second quarter of 2018, and continued to rise in the days that followed.
The world's best-selling electric car
As the production capacity is gradually released, the sales of Model 3 are also rising. In 2019, the global sales of pure electric vehicles were 2.2 million, and the number of Tesla ranked first, with annual sales exceeding 366,000 vehicles, and Model 3 contributed the most, with annual sales of 300,800 vehicles. In other words, Model 3 alone accounts for 13% of global electric vehicle sales.
builds a factory in China, and the future is expected to be
. The annual sales volume of 300,000 vehicles is far from the end. On July 10, 2018, the Shanghai Municipal Government officially stated that Tesla will establish the world's third super factory in Shanghai to produce Model 3 and Model Y models, and all the models produced will be sold in China. In just over a year since then, on January 7, 2020, the Tesla Shanghai factory began to deliver vehicles to car owners, with a production capacity of up to 3,000 units per week.
China is the largest overseas market for Tesla . After the Shanghai factory is officially put into production, most of the components of Tesla will be provided by Chinese suppliers, and a large amount of tariffs will be saved. In addition to the domestic cost advantages in various aspects, Model 3 still has greater room for price reduction, which will further drive Tesla sales in China. No wonder Musk is happy.
And as consumers, this is also something we are happy to see. After all, who doesn’t want to own a cheap Tesla ?
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