Charging is underestimated? An interpretation of the logic behind Tesla's hot sales

SMM News: a few days ago, Li wanted to comment that the core reason for Tesla's "sales crushing" lies in the drive of the charging system, which triggered a lot of rebuttal in the automobile circle, saying that Tesla won in the brand power, driving experience, driving and other views. In fact, from the meaning of Li Xiang's words, it does not mean that charging is a single winning factor, but most of their peers seriously underestimate the role of Tesla's self-built supercharging station in promoting sales. Coincidentally, Tesla announced the completion of the V3 super charging pile on August 7 and revealed in detail the progress of the charging layout. Does Tesla's hot sale depend on the charging system? You can get a glimpse of it.

The core is to eliminate mileage anxiety.

Every research and analysis on the needs of users of new energy vehicles will point to the two biggest problems: battery life and charging. When the "trailblazer" Tesla first entered the Chinese market in 2014, the range of electric cars hovered around 200km in the same period., Model S went directly to 500km. In the following years, China and other multinational brands of electric cars gradually caught up to the 500km or higher level, and Tesla still relied on the first-mover advantage to stabilize the long-range brand establishment.

The layout of the charging network is a little ahead of product promotion. Tesla has been building charging stations around the world since 2012. At present, more than 2500 super charging piles and 2400 destination charging piles have been built in China, covering 90 per cent of densely populated cities, and can support long-distance travel from Beijing to Shanghai, Harbin to Sanya, Lanzhou to Shenzhen, across east and west, north and south.

Except for Xiaopeng Automobile to build overcharge piles (116 seats) and Weilai to build replacement power stations (130), there are few car companies that have personally set up to build a large-scale charging / switching network. Tesla has the largest single-brand charging network in the domestic new energy market, which is not only convenient and practical, but also an addition to the brand.

The newly completed V3 super charging pile in Beijing is the focus of Tesla's construction of a charging network in the second half of the year. V3 uses new power electronic components, which has a faster charging speed than V2 super charging pile, and can achieve the maximum charging power of 250kW. Take the Model 3 as an example, charging for 15 minutes can supplement the mileage of more than the 200km, and the old Model Spicer X can also add more than 100km. Coupled with the vehicle's own "preheating of batteries on the way" function, the charging time has been greatly shortened. And the V3 super charging pile uses a brand new liquid-cooled wire and charging gun head, which is lighter than the V2.

The improvement of the super charging pile and vehicle software gradually makes Tesla's power-up time the same as the traditional car refueling time. Striving to achieve the goal of "adding 4000 new super-charging piles" in 2020 is twice the total number of super-charging piles built by Tesla in China in the past five years, and corresponds to the current fast-growing number of super-charging piles.

To sum up, Tesla's charging service has four characteristics: fast, extensive, intelligent and insensitive. The role of no inductance can not be ignored. Tesla, the person in charge of PR in China, gave an example. Compared with a competitor of more than 1 million products, the charging process includes more than a dozen steps, such as scanning the code, identification, confirmation, payment, and so on. While Tesla uses the networking function, the car and piles will be ready on the way to the charging station, and the payment will be bound in advance without operation. This experience is somewhat similar to Didi Taxi, which simplifies the operation process as much as possible.

Some people in the industry have analyzed a detail that Tesla's good sale has something to do with the fact that he knows the charging piles like the back of his hand. Electricity application and installation, cost of electricity charges, property communication, selection of charging piles, matters needing attention in installation, use of external public charging piles, troubleshooting, and so on. In contrast to the practice of some traditional car companies, let users turn on the power supply themselves, and then contact the manufacturer's 4S store service, hang up the charging pile. Without this thoughtful consideration of the user experience, it will basically dissuade most people who want to buy an electric car.

Therefore, the point that moves users to buy is not just as simple as the surface of the super charging station, Tesla has actually eaten through the relevant links of the entire charging chain, building a relatively perfect system of home charging, destination charging, super charging stations, third-party charging piles, and so on, with very mature charging after-sales service. That's why there were so many Model 3 consumers suddenly added in 2020, but there were few vicious complaints about the lack of charging services.

How long can it be hot?

Now almost every new energy vehicle takes Tesla as a "target", but from the behavior of consumers voting with their feet, Tesla's gap in sales is becoming more and more obvious. After surviving the worst two months of the epidemic, Tesla's sales rose rapidly in March, winning 20 per cent of the market share of new energy vehicles that month. Sales fell back to the 4000 range in April as consumers waited for price adjustments and other factors. When prices stabilized, they continued to rise strongly in May and June.

"data source: amount of risk"

If the impact of Tesla's hot sales on other manufacturers in March is not obvious, then there will be some sense of threat in June. Gao Le, president of BMW Group Greater China, admitted in recent communication that "there must be a war with Tesla", while Li Xiang used "disaster" to describe Tesla's sales. Figures show that the Model 3 sold 14977 vehicles in China in June and topped the list in key markets such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, regardless of fuel or new energy.

There are different opinions on Tesla's hot-selling phenomenon in the outside world. Automobile consumption decision-making is a complex project. If you look back at Tesla's experience in laying down the American market, there are signs of fashion. After laying the groundwork for several high-end products, to Model 3 cut into the popular market, the product level of life performance, intelligent driving, iterative upgrades have been honed in place, domestic and scale advantages pull down the purchase threshold. During the same period, competitors can excel in pricing, configuration, workmanship, car networking applications and even battery life, but the charging service ability of the door is obviously unable to catch up.

Tesla has also fought a price war, localizing parts in Shanghai factories will reach about 80 per cent by the end of the year, and the cost of domestic cars will be further reduced. Musk said with considerable strength, "Tesla's price is not close enough to the people and needs to continue to be reduced." Tesla only needs meagre profits to maximize sales growth. " It can be seen that the second half of the year may usher in a new round of Model 3 price cuts, sales will also rise.

Tesla has a global delivery target of 500000 vehicles this year, and moves such as building a new US plant and expanding the Shanghai plant reveal greater ambitions. Model Y, which Musk thinks will be more successful than Model 3, may even open Twilight of the Gods once launched. But at the same time, in the face of the growth of orders of magnitude, Tesla's quality, workmanship, channels and service capabilities will be greatly tested. Because today's Tesla buyers have entered the crowd who are sensitive to price and care about product quality very much.

Some time ago, Tesla price changes, "domestic reduction", "concealment of long-lasting version of the model launch information" and other events caused a wave of car owners crusade. As a result of advertising content was fined, motor extension misprinting complaints and other problems, but also uncovered Tesla sales rushing under the corner of chaos.

How does Tesla keep up with the requirements of mainstream consumers? From this year's pile construction plan, we can see that charging is still the first priority for Tesla to strengthen services. This confirms Musk's first-principle way of thinking and solves the most fundamental pain point for consumers.

It is also associated with Li Xiang's previous point of view: in addition to improving to solve the problems of battery life and charging, the competition barrier built by Tesla also lies in the system and chip, and its threshold is very high. Poor sound insulation, rough work is a small thing, it is easy to solve, but he did not pay attention to it today.

Did Tesla really not pay attention to these problems? Not really, the announcement of the establishment of a design studio and R & D center in China is a signal. There are also a series of moves such as the approachable opening of Tmall's flagship store and the plan to settle in 45 cities with more sinking channels. In the seventh year of entering the Chinese market, Tesla "stirred" the competition pattern of new energy and even traditional cars to be more and more interesting.

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