Early in the morning of December 6, Tesla's US headquarters temporarily called the two global vice presidents in Guangzhou, Wu Bizhen and Jin Jun, to hold a conference call, delaying the Guangzhou media meeting. At that time, Tesla's local time in Los Angeles was nearing work in the afternoon.
There aren't many opportunities for face-to-face. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, when selecting the head of China, especially favors IT people with American life background to ensure smooth communication. Jin Jun, the newly appointed vice president and chief marketing officer of Greater China, lived in Silicon Valley for three years. He was a CMO of Gaode.
Separated by 16 time zones, Musk clearly knows that a remote foreign market is no stranger than a remote rocket. The regional strategy is highly consistent with Tesla's global, and feedback on the specifics of the Chinese market is equally important.
“Like all multinational companies, the global need for a unified policy to maintain brand unity.†Jin Jun responded to the rumors that the “Double 11†Tmall store was stopped by the headquarters, triggering external control over the Tesla headquarters. Too fine, the management of China has no initiative to question.
Tesla is a typical IT thinking, IT companies can achieve a globally unified product-to-management, such as Apple, global products and sales models are basically the same. But almost all successful multinational auto companies have adopted a customized product and marketing model for China because they have to face complex consumption. The basic rule is that the greater the degree of autonomy in China, the easier it is to succeed.
On the same day, Wu Bizhen talked about a lot of sharp questions, but she still has a hard time answering whether Tesla is a car or an IT company. "It can only be said that it is a technology company."
In an interview with a 21st Century Business Herald a few months ago, I was not willing to bluntly explain the Tesla brand positioning. Wu Bizhen explained the future direction of Tesla: it is a technology product that many people can afford, not just a car.
Since the launch of China's product price Tesla, it has been spontaneously positioned as a luxury, futuristic and high-profile, colorful cultural symbol. Wu Bizhen is very wronged, stressing that Tesla is intended to manufacture and traditional cars. Different technology products are not luxury goods.
The conflict between American thinking and Chinese thinking has always existed. When Tesla was founded in 2003, Musk realized that the world no longer needed a car company, but a company that produces transportation combined with IT and new energy vehicles.
Many people don't understand that Tesla is a car, why are they more interested in IT? What kind of company is Tesla, what brand is it, and almost every follower has his own understanding.
Musk was not eager to position, causing confusion in his understanding. In the early days, Tesla's product positioning was very high. The first product, Roadster, sold for $150,000 (then equivalent to nearly RMB 1.2 million) and sold only 2,000 units.
Until ModelS was in China for half a year, Tesla had no intention of launching products and brand positioning in China. In fact, the executives in charge of Tesla are mainly from the IT industry, and IT products are not like a car, each product must clearly draw a circle for themselves.
Tesla ModelS is listed in China, and even disdains to engage in listing activities like auto companies, but has engaged in a small delivery ceremony. Apple does the same.
Although Tesla's bones are more like an IT company, after entering the market, Wu Bizhen found that in the end it still has to follow the rules of the car to do marketing, in the car terminology, to move from the niche to the masses.
The most important thing is to cut prices. From Roadster to ModelS, Musk has already reduced the price of its products by nearly half. Next, the ModelX, which will be launched from the end of next year to the beginning of 2016, will be halved in price compared to ModelS, and the subsequent Model3 will be cut in half.
For Tesla, which sold only 35,000 units this year, this is a daunting goal. There is no scale for car brands, and it is almost impossible to reduce the price of parts and components. And Tesla's integrated parts supply has already put the cost to a lower level.
Musk thought of the battery. In general, the battery of a pure electric electric vehicle can account for half of the cost of the car. Tesla's ModelS may be a little higher because it uses a higher energy density of the 18650 battery and is shipped from Japan to the United States for assembly.
In September of this year, Tesla chose Nevada as the final destination for the “super battery factoryâ€, which is expected to provide battery packs for 500,000 cars per year by 2020. “Localized scale production can reduce the cost of batteries by 30%.â€
Tear off the nasty label Tesla's consumer groups in China, vividly portraying the many characteristics of Tesla. Some are in line with the Tesla brand positioning, and there are some special groups that portray a vivid image that is not subject to Tesla.
"We have a preliminary 'portrait' for our customers, initially mainly for the big names of technology companies." Jin Jun said. This is a group with a futuristic, high education and label. The other part is the investment bank, financial executives, and attention to Tesla because of the myth that the stock price soared in a year.
These two labels have attracted the “Golden Nationality†local tyrants, and most of the Tesla owners who have seen in some small cities in the Mainland come from this group.
Some small real estate developers hired Tesla to gather popular gimmicks as a real estate project. In the first half of this year, when the Tesla concept was fired, the rental of Tesla was a good business.
This is a terrible signal for Tesla, the brand's formation period. Once it is labeled with a less beautiful label, it is difficult to be "whitewashed". The most typical representative is that BMW has used the labels of upstarts for many years.
Tesla China began to consciously pass on the brand positioning. Some pioneering business owners became the protagonists of Tesla's official Weibo story. The typical Guangdong owner Wang Zhenfei opened the report of ModelS from Xining to Lhasa.
The goal of Tesla's favorite in the future is the young entrepreneurial group of “not rich and handsomeâ€. Wu Bizhen believes that this part of the population will be the main force of Tesla's popularization. It is expected that the Model3 will be launched in 2017, and the price will drop to 35,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to the price of a premium fuel in a traditional fuel.
Unlike the previous view that the direct sales model is the innovation of car sales, Wu Bizhen said: “Tesla is forced to use the direct sales model.†As a pure electric car, when Tesla enters the traditional dealer channel, the sales staff even I am too lazy to spend more time to understand it and recommend it to customers.
"It is the same as when Apple first launched, the store salesman is more willing to sell a good PC, Apple is forced to no way, can only direct sales." Wu Bizhen said.
Get out of charge "island"
Although the automobile industry has already achieved mass production, it is similar to IT products. However, in the market, China's consumption characteristics are very different from those in Europe and the United States. When European and American models are introduced to China, improvements in appearance, interior and even powertrain are required. To cater to consumer preferences.
As a car, Tesla can never be an apple. Tesla has been squandered in the Chinese market, including rough interiors, unusable lockers, and dirty wipers. Tesla's Chinese executives are aware of the problem. “Tesla is headquartered in California, where there is very little rain, which prevents engineers from experiencing rainy work when it rains.â€
There are still many regional differences. Americans have garages at home, and daily charging can be done at home, so Tesla's supercharge stations in the United States are built on the highway. However, most Chinese cities live in high-rise buildings. The traffic within the city depends heavily on public charging stations. Tesla has to choose the address of the super charging station in the city center.
The problem is that the city's central land price is high and the construction cost will rise sharply. At present, 130 super charging stations have been built in the United States, and the number of Chinese is 34. Wu Bizhen did not disclose the construction plan for next year.
The convenience of charging is the core element of Tesla's popularity. Wu Bizhen's strategy is to build more than 600 destination charging piles in addition to adding super charging stations and making greater use of the dense dot layout of large companies. Even so, Tesla is far from convenient charging. A more pressing problem is that Tesla's DC charging standard is different from European, American, Japanese and Chinese standards and has a separate communication protocol.
Wu Bizhen confirmed to reporters in Shenzhen in July that Tesla will be in line with the national standard when the revised Chinese national standard is officially released. This means that other electric vehicles can be recharged on Tesla's equipment, and Tesla electric vehicles can also be recharged with a huge public charging network built by the state.
The actual operation is not simple. Electric vehicle charging is divided into AC charging and DC charging. AC refers to general slow charging. According to Wu Bizhen, “We understand that the new national standard and Tesla's current standards are very close, that is, the interface is different, so compatibility is easy. â€
It is much more complicated to use DC charging for fast charging. The DC charging voltage is very high, and the amount of current is also large. The communication protocol and battery withstand capability of the charger and the electric vehicle are very high.
Tesla has a long battery life and a large battery capacity. Only use high voltage and high current to shorten the charging time. The super charging station uses 480 volts and the output power is 135 kWh. Take the Tesla ModelS85 as an example, charging half in 20 minutes, 80% in 40 minutes, and 80 minutes.
According to the performance parameters of the charger announced by the State Grid, the output voltage is divided into two levels: 150V-350V, 300V-500V, and Tesla parameters can also be applied. However, according to the applicable conditions, the three DC chargers are small and medium-sized. They require: the battery is only 36-80, 70-120, the battery capacity is not more than 500Ah, 1000Ah and 2000Ah, and the Tesla battery pack contains 7000. Multiple 18650 small batteries, battery capacity is 3100Ah.
Even if Tesla is willing to meet the national standard, if the national standard technology can not meet the Tesla-type high voltage, Tesla can still not borrow the national charging network, or can only succumb to slow down the fast charging speed.
Musk knew well about the difficulties. Once the charge slowed down, Tesla's high-capacity battery and high cruising range advantage no longer existed. After reporting "Tesla's charging island" in May this year, on June 9, Musk first announced that Tesla's free super charging station system design.
Regarding whether Tesla can maintain charging performance in the country's charging station in the future, Wu Bizhen is very optimistic: "The new national standard charging speed is not necessarily lower than Tesla, we understand that after Tesla public charging technology, standard-setting organization awareness High-speed charging is possible."
