Potential crises that Tesla cannot ignore

Since the Tesla Shanghai factory was put into production in 2019, it can be said to be a new turning point in the development of new energy vehicles in China. Model 3, in particular, has successfully attracted everyone's attention with its excellent sales performance. It has dominated the new energy vehicle market and has been at the top of the new energy vehicle market for a long time.

However, China’s auto market is no longer an era dominated by one company and dominated by foreign capital. After years of hard work, it has the ability to compete with foreign brands, and in some aspects, it has even left foreign brand models behind. Domestic new energy vehicles, such as Weilai, BYD, Ideal, Xpeng, Weimar and other new forces, are catching up faster and faster.

After the new domestic car-making forces have experienced a storm, more and more traditional car companies have also begun to deploy new energy markets. With large-scale R&D investment, domestic car companies and Tesla have The gap in technological capabilities between countries is gradually narrowing.

I don’t know if it’s because of pressure or because of Musk’s personality. The CEO of Tesla would “quarrel” with a certain car company almost every once in a while. This phenomenon seems to be getting worse. His opponents are not only domestic car companies, but also foreign car companies.

Since 2015, Musk has publicly "teared" traditional mainstream car companies including Volkswagen, Toyota, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz. Starting in 2019, with the opening up of Tesla's Chinese market, Musk has Skoda is targeting Chinese car companies again.

The most famous one is Xpeng Motors. Tesla accused Xpeng of plagiarizing its intellectual property because its former employees switched jobs to Xpeng. Xpeng also responded unceremoniously. Although this matter has been going on for more than a year and there is still no clear answer, it still does not affect Musk's ability to use the topic.

Not long ago, Xpeng Motors announced that it will launch the first mass-produced car equipped with lidar in 2021. "Actor" Musk posted on his Twitter: "Although Xpeng Motors has Tesla "It has an older version of the software, but it doesn't have Tesla's latest neural network computer." It not only expressed disdain for this technology, but also reiterated previous disputes over intellectual property rights. The posture of pulling apart and "tearing apart".

Why is this CEO said to be an "actor"? Looking at Musk's historical performance, he is not only a very talented person, but also a person who is good at seizing every opportunity and even creating opportunities to perform.

For example, on April 23, four ministries and commissions issued a new policy for new energy subsidies, "the selling price of new energy passenger vehicles must be less than 300,000 yuan before subsidies." The next day, Tesla immediately announced The prices of the two domestically produced Model 3s have risen to more than 300,000 yuan each.

The editor wrote an article at the time and said that this price increase should be treated as a joke! It will soon drop to less than 300,000. The purpose of raising the price now is just to attract attention, gain attention, and cut some leeks by the way.

Raise the price by several thousand and give up tens of thousands of subsidies? Is it possible? If Tesla is not creating traffic for itself, it can only be said that there is a serious problem with its way of thinking.

Sure enough, just a week later, Musk announced that the standard range version of the domestic Model 3 had dropped to less than 300,000.

This kind of arbitrary price adjustment may earn Tesla some traffic in the short term, but in the long run, it will do more harm than good.

Recently, there are media reports that Tesla currently has 252 legal lawsuits. A large part of them are collective actions initiated by Tesla’s arbitrary and willful price cuts and hurt feelings of car owners. Rights protection, accusing Tesla of price fraud by rapidly cutting prices. (In more than two years, Tesla has adjusted prices more than a dozen times, with the highest reduction reaching more than 400,000 yuan, and the shortest interval between price adjustments, 6 days)

Another big reason is that Tesla lawsuits over quality control issues. As Tesla’s market share increases, Tesla’s “halo” is gradually fading. Because Tesla’s own quality control has been unstable and broken shafts occur frequently, in October this year , Tesla recalled 48,000 imported Model S and Model X vehicles, which has become Tesla's largest recall in China.

As the saying goes, "When you lose, you have to admit it, and when you get beaten, you have to stand upright." However, Tesla's attitude is completely different from other car companies. Not only did it not apologize, but it also publicly stated abroad that "Broken axle" "It's not my fault, it's the Chinese who don't know how to drive!" The recall was initiated reluctantly because we did not want to face the extremely complicated administrative review process. Such remarks have obviously hurt the feelings of some domestic consumers.

Not only broken axles, but also issues such as spontaneous car combustion, mobile APP security vulnerabilities, and body quality control have been surrounding Tesla. Even two well-known consumer consulting organizations in the United States, "J.D. Power" released In the quality ranking of China's new energy models, Tesla is lower than Weilai. Another equally well-known American company, Consumer Reports, ranked the reliability of 26 hot-selling models in the United States this year. Tesla Second to last.

252 lawsuits, of course not all of them. How many lawsuits has Tesla faced in China? It is estimated that only Tesla itself knows that Tesla is moving to the opposite side of this trend amid frequent conflicts with car owners. It is obviously unwise for both Tesla and Musk. When car companies and car owners really start to confront each other, the results can be imagined. Today, Tesla's sales in Europe have fallen out of the top ten, which is a lesson from the past.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.