Recently, Tesla has started selling to U.S. customers at a price ofCybertruck electric pickup truck worth US$120,000 (approximately RMB 860,000), domestic reservations are also officially accepted. But according to a survey by the CanaccordGenuity team,After the price and truck performance were announced, 67% of the respondents answered "not" to buy the Cybertruck, while 33% said "yes".
Based solely on the results of the CanaccordGenuity survey, I believe most people will think that Cybertruck seems to be quite groundbreaking, buthas not been fully recognized by the market.
After a short period of fermentation after the news was released, Tesla’s stock price fell again and again. Among the bearish views on Tesla,I think the price of a car exceeding US$60,000 is too high, the sales volume will not be very good for the majority; another view is that Cybertruck’sProduction capacity will not increase in the short term, which is also an important consideration that limits sales growth.
Because Cybertruck uses molded metal sheets instead of stamping machinery, the revolutionary process means Tesla needs to repurchase manufacturing equipment, but it has not been verified at scale since Tesla released the relevant process in 2019.
More importantly, in the past few years since Tesla developed the cybertruck, the U.S. electric pickup truck market has already changed. For example,Ford's F-Series pickup truckA total of 636,900 vehicles will be sold in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 19.7%. Among them, Ford's F-150 Lightning can travel 230 miles to 320 miles on a single charge, which is comparable to the cybertruck's cruising range of 250 miles to 340 miles. The basic model is priced at US$49,995, which is significantly lower than the cybertruck.
Therefore, considering the basic performance of the cybertruck, it is obviously not enough for the cybertruck to become the second growth curve of Tesla Motors. Especially under the background of Tesla's insufficient utilization rate of new production lines, which caused the gross profit margin to fall below 18% and the net profit to fall by 44% in the third quarter of 2023, it is tantamount to making it more difficult to increase the capacity and utilization rate of the new production line.
But in fact, Cybertruck’s market recognition far exceeds previous expectations., the company's stock price also fell slightly by less than 2% compared with before the release of Cybertruck.
Cybertruck exceeds expectations
Although the Cybertruck was launched to the market later than the same electric pickup truck from Ford, and Canaccord Genuity survey results showed that more than 60% of the respondents would not consider buying the Cybertruck, according to third-party data provided by Tesla, currentlyCumulative orders for Cybertruck have exceeded 2 million units.
It’s easy to understand when you think about it. After all, Cybertruck has the tough characteristics of an American pickup truck and is fully empowered by new energy and intelligent technologies. In particular, its technological and futuristic exterior design is eye-catching. The most important thing is that the American pickup truck market is indeed more inclusive.
In 2022, global pickup truck sales will be 5.65 million units, with more than half of sales in North America., especially the U.S. sales account for about half of the total global sales. Since 2018, overall U.S. car sales have been under pressure, but pickup truck sales are still impressive in the U.S. market, with annual sales hovering around 3 million units, and their sales proportion steadily increasing from 16.7% in 2018 to 19.0% in 2022.
From a brand perspective,Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge RamPickup trucks of other brands occupy an important share in the U.S. market, accounting for 23.6%, 19.3%, and 17.3% of sales in 2022 respectively.
Cybertruck has adopted a differentiated competitive approach since its inception., Cybertruck uses the same super-hard cold-rolled stainless steel 30X material as the SpaceX rocket shell to make the body. It has very strong hardness and durability, which can alleviate the surface dents, damage and corrosion problems caused by long-term use, especially when it is shot by 9mm caliber bullets. It is very important for the free America to ensure that the door is not penetrated. This makes its payload of up to 2,500 pounds (approximately 1,135kg), which far exceeds the F-150 Lightning’s 1,000-pound towing capacity (11,000 pounds, approximately 5 tons), less dazzling.
At the same time, the Cybertruck body adopts the "ExoSkeleton" design, which does not require the support of the frame and only relies on the force of the outermost layer to meet the requirements for body strength and safety. In addition, the Cybertruck armored glass is very strong and can withstand the impact of a baseball at a speed of 112km/h or level 4 hail.
Performance, the Cybertruck beast version accelerates from 0 to 100 kilometers in only 2.7 seconds and travels 1/4 mile (about 402 meters) in less than 11 seconds. It can outperform a Porsche 911 when towing a Porsche 911.
Because the Cybertruck can adjust the steering force of the steering wheel according to the wheel speed, the turning radius will be smaller than that of the Model S, reducing the difficulty of driving. The electronic adaptive air suspension can provide a range of movement of 305mm and a ground clearance of 432mm, which can flexibly cope with various complex road conditions. The center of gravity is very low, and there will be no rollover.
In terms of smart cockpits, the soundproof glass equipped with the Cybertruck provides a quiet space for the cockpit. It is equipped with an "18.5-inch front row + 9.4-inch rear row" touch screen, 15 speakers (including 2 dedicated subwoofers and distributed Amplifier) provides users with a "theater-like experience", a wireless mobile phone charging pad, a 65W USB-C interface and a 120V/240V socket. You can charge comfortably in the front seats, rear seats or cargo box without worrying about entertainment power outages. In addition, Tesla claims that the cabin is equipped with a medical-grade HEPA high-efficiency air filtration system, which can effectively filter 99.97% of air particles.
As an electric pickup truck, Cybertruck's performance is impressive enough. Currently, the only thing that can limit Cybertruck's sales seems to be production capacity.
The mystery of reduced capacity utilization
According to the company’s third quarter financial report,Tesla’s existing production capacity utilization rate is not high, Generally speaking, when a manufacturing company has insufficient production capacity, firstly, downstream demand plummets and some existing production lines are suspended; secondly, the company's production capacity expands significantly, and it takes time to increase the capacity utilization rate. The former means that the company has officially entered the slope, and the latter means that the company is in a period of rapid development. Coincidentally, Tesla belongs to the latter.
Looking back at the changes in Tesla's production capacity, from 2015 to 2017, the acquisition target may be to ensure the mass production of cars, because Tesla encountered Model 3 production capacity difficulties. Since 2015, Tesla has focused on ensuring mass production technology. In 2016, it began to acquire Grohmann Engineering (a company that specializes in manufacturing machines to ensure equipment supply for Tesla) and Perbix (a mass production and automation company) to effectively solve this problem.
Tesla then focused its acquisitions on battery manufacturers. On Battery Day 2020, Tesla officially announced that it would start producing new batteries on its own, indicating that it is focusing on battery technology innovation.
In terms of vehicle production capacity, Tesla's first factory is its Fremont factory in California, where the first Model S came from. The first overseas factory isTesla Shanghai Gigafactory, mainly used for Model 3 and Model Y; the Berlin Gigafactory in 2022 is Tesla's first Gigafactory in Europe, mainly used for Model Y; the other three are located in Texas, Nevada and New York state in the United States, and are responsible for vehicle manufacturing, battery packs and charging piles, and rooftop solar energy. Tesla's vehicle production capacity continues to expand. According to Tesla's plan, the planned production capacity of the six factories will reach 4.4 million vehicles, and the production capacity will be 1.373 million vehicles by 2022.
At this stage, Tesla's production capacity expansion is relatively smooth, and it has established a complete sales system. It uses lithium batteries as the core of power, uses charging piles to provide charging services, uses the construction of super factories to produce complete vehicles, builds direct-operated experience stores to promote test drives and sales, and uses service centers to carry out delivery and after-sales.
With the support of this complete system, Tesla's gross profit margin has always been much higher than that of competing companies. It is about 2 times that of Ideal, about 4 times that of Xpeng, and about 3 times that of Ford, Toyota and other fuel vehicle companies., once Tesla achieves a production capacity of 4.4 million vehicles in the future, the company's scale effect will continue to amplify, and the company's integrated die-casting technology will continue to mature and the production process will be shorter. Tesla's gross profit on single vehicles is expected to further increase.
This is also the basis for Tesla to take the lead in launching a price war in the new energy vehicle market. The purpose of the company's previously launched "Grand Plan" is to gain more market share through "price-for-volume", and its main model is Model 3.
The choice of sales force
After years of iterations, the Model 3 cruising range (CLTC) has increased from 445KM in 2019 to 554KM. This is mainly due to the continuous improvement of Tesla's standard battery life capacity and the continuous improvement of battery costs, replacing it with lithium iron phosphate with lower energy density and shorter battery life.
However, while improving the battery life, Tesla has compromised on the Model 3’s top speed, zero to 100km/h, motor power and other performance indicators. The outside world believes that this is because there are fewer unrestricted highways in China and more urban application scenarios, but in fact, it is the inevitable result of Tesla’s laziness.Its product positioning has also changed from the early "driver's car" to "family car".
Even its other main sales model Model Y,Tesla also launched a smaller version of Model Q in an attempt to further increase its market share. It is worth noting that the production cost of Model Q is only half of the Model 3/Y model, and the price has also plummeted to US$25,000 (approximately 180,000 yuan). Although it is still in the concept car stage, Tesla's top-down development strategy has been completely formed.
In order to further reduce manufacturing costs, Tesla has made great efforts in integrated die-casting. In the past few years, Tesla's integrated die-casting capacity has increased from Model Y's 6,000-ton clamping force die-casting machine to Cybertruck's 9,000-ton.By the time Model Q is mass-produced, its integrated die-casting level may be further improved, and Musk has also made bold claims that the final number of this model may exceed 700 million units., competitors such as Volkswagen ID.3, Renault 5, MGZS, BYDATTO3 and other models cannot match it.
Combined with the Cybertruck recently released by the company,Tesla model research and development has a trend of "polarization". Low-priced models win with volume, while high-priced models win with high gross profit margins., in conjunction with the company's scale advantage, to achieve stable profit growth.
From this point of view, although the official delivery of Cybertruck is not as "disruptive to the industry" as advertised by the outside world, it is enough to promote the integration and iteration of the industry chain again, and the Model Q launched in the future will also participate in this iteration of the industry chain. As for whether they can cooperate with each other to improve Tesla's performance as Musk wants, only time will tell.