In March, Tesla's second overseas "Giga Factory", the Berlin factory, was officially put into production. The start of production of this factory is of great significance to Tesla. China's Shanghai Gigafactory is now responsible for more than half of Tesla's deliveries. If the Berlin factory can also successfully reach the planned production capacity, it will further help Tesla to consolidate the global The leading position of new energy vehicle enterprises
The German new energy vehicle market is currently undergoing rapid development. In 2021, Germany will be the world's largest new energy vehicle market except China, ranking first in Europe with sales of 690,100 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 72.7%. At the same time, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in Germany was 26.32%, a year-on-year increase of about 100%, the highest in the world except for the Nordic countries. In contrast, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the other three major European economies, the United Kingdom and France, is less than 20%, and that in Italy is only 9.62%.
So why is the German new energy vehicle market developing so rapidly?
1. The most direct reason - the EU's strict emission laws
Long before the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in the summer of 2013, the then 27 EU member states had already made clear their medium-term plans to significantly reduce vehicle emissions in the first half of this century.
In April 2019, this plan was officially implemented, and the European Commission established a goal of reducing the average carbon emissions of vehicles across the EU by 37.5% by 2030. Specific to the field of passenger cars, it is actually a core indicator: 95 grams per kilometer. (That is: an average of 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer for passenger cars, and 147 grams for light commercial vehicles.) If the new car fails to meet the test, there will be huge fines.
When this standard was announced in 2019, it could be called "aggressive", because almost no European car company can meet the standard when it is implemented in 2020. According to the estimation of market research agency PA Consulting at the time, European car companies will pay a total of 14.5 billion euros in fines, and the three major German groups (Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler) will pay a total of more than 7 billion euros, of which Volkswagen will pay about 45 billion euros. billion euros.
Although many modifications have been made to this stringent standard, for example, vehicles with emissions below 5% can be excluded from the calculation, etc., but to a large extent, it has promoted the transformation of traditional car companies and vigorously developed pure new energy vehicles.
2. The stimulus from the German government on the consumer side
In order to promote the development of new energy vehicles, the German government mainly stimulates consumption in the following three ways. First, car purchase subsidies/tax exemptions: subsidies to individuals or car companies according to different price segments; second, to reduce usage costs: such as exemption from taxes (road tax, emission tax, etc.) arising from the use of vehicles, exemption from public parking fees, Avoid tolls and lower electricity prices; third, build infrastructure such as public charging piles to ensure the availability of new energy vehicles.
First, the German new energy vehicle subsidies are as follows:
For cars with a net price of less than 40,000 euros, the full electric subsidy is 9,000 euros and the plug-in subsidy is 6,750 euros.
For a car with a net price of 40,000-65,000 euros, the all-electric subsidy is 7,500 euros and the plug-in subsidy is 5,625 euros.
Although other European countries have different policies, the general subsidy is up to 6,000 euros. Therefore, German subsidies are relatively large in Europe.
In addition, in order to reduce the cost of use, Germany exempted the car tax for new energy vehicles for 10 years. According to the analysis of the research report of Deutsche Bank Research, for compact vehicles (such as Volkswagen ID.3 and Volkswagen golf life, the net price is around 30,000 euros), the cost of use should be reduced by at least 15,000 euros; for mid-to-high-end vehicles (such as Audi E- Tron 50 quattro and SQ5, net price of about 59,000 euros), reducing the cost of use by at least 20,000 euros.
Consumers of mid-to-low-end new energy vehicles tend to value the cost-effectiveness of their vehicles. Therefore, Germany's subsidies can fully cover the price gap between low- and mid-range fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, thereby better stimulating the consumer side. The German government hopes that by 2030, Germany will have 7-10 million new energy vehicles.
3. The starting point for the development of new energy vehicles in Germany - traditional car giants
No matter how the regulatory level is stimulated, it is fundamental to be able to create a usable new energy vehicle. The government cannot build cars by itself, it has to rely on enterprises.
From this perspective, Germany's traditional car giants are the main force in the new energy vehicle market. Among them, the three top auto groups (Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler Benz) have many brands, the five first-tier suppliers (Continental, Bosch, Schaeffler, ZF, HELLA), as well as countless small and medium-sized automobile manufacturers. Parts suppliers, the automotive industry chain is very developed. In addition, these companies have experienced many industry changes and have rich experience in responding to industry changes. In fact, some traditional car companies have tried new energy vehicles very early. For example, the BMW Group manufactured the new energy vehicle 1602e as early as 1972.
But for traditional car companies, "transition" is not easy. The technical reserves, company organizational structure, and even business models required by new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles are significantly different. The future of new energy vehicles will be smart cars with autonomous driving functions, which are very different from traditional fuel vehicles:
First, the engine and gearbox with the most complex, most valuable, and longest manufacturing chain of traditional fuel vehicles are replaced by electric motor control for new energy vehicles. The acceleration and shifting performance of mid-range passenger cars are no longer comparable to those of luxury fuel sports cars. up and down. If the traditional fuel vehicles are completely abandoned, the enterprises, departments and talents that were originally the crown jewels will lose their usefulness.
Second, new energy vehicles will be smart cars in the future. OEMs write operating software systems instead of operating systems in the traditional car era, and then the OEMs will assemble them. This requires car companies to newly build huge software departments to design operating systems.
Third, smart cars require more understanding of end customers, and the car will have software services, which is inconsistent with the existing car dealership model. At present, new forces such as Tesla in the United States and "Wei Xiaoli" in China mainly adopt the direct sales model.
Therefore, the cost of transforming new energy vehicles for traditional car companies is very high, and there will be huge changes in internal and external organizations, and business risks are also high.
But even so, the advantages of traditional car companies are still very obvious. The interior and exterior of the car, the experience of mass production, and the strong brand influence (there are many families in Germany who buy cars of the same brand for two or three generations) are all Off the shelf. Although the new energy products of the traditional German auto giants are still not as famous as Tesla, they also have a number of new energy vehicles that are already selling well.
For now, the competition in the German new energy vehicle market is between traditional car companies and Tesla. In 2021, the giants will barely suppress Tesla, but with the construction of Tesla's factories, the competition pattern in the German market may also change.
Germany's traditional car giants are wary of Tesla's Berlin landing. Although for now, the giant's electric car business is in a different price band from Tesla - what the traditional German car giants (except for Volkswagen's Audi) want to create a low-cost, city-accessible, with a certain amount of assistance The explosive models driven, but Tesla's "siege" in Germany is likely to erode the gas car market of the giants. Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess once said: "The competition from Berlin (referring to Tesla's Berlin factory) will be extremely cruel."
So why is the German giant so jealous of Tesla?
Compared with traditional car companies, Tesla has obvious advantages in production efficiency, cost control, and software service capabilities.
In terms of production efficiency, at the Berlin factory, the total production time of a Tesla Model 3 will not exceed 10 hours (the vehicle goes through the four processes of punching, welding, coating, and the total online time until it leaves the factory. ). By comparison, Volkswagen, the 2021 sales champion, takes an average of more than 30 hours to produce a tiny electric car, the ID.3.
In addition, Tesla’s Berlin plant with a production capacity of 500,000 vehicles has 12,000 employees, while Volkswagen’s planned electric vehicle production plant is 25,000 people with an annual production capacity of 700,000 vehicles. Tesla's unit efficiency is 1.49 times that of Volkswagen's plan.
In terms of cost control, Tesla’s gross profit margin is close to 30%, Volkswagen’s most profitable Porsche has a gross profit margin of about 15%, BMW and Mercedes-Benz’s gross profit margins are 17.6% and 12.7%, Audi’s Only 10.7%. In addition, Tesla produces its own 4860 batteries, while traditional German car companies are currently mainly purchasing (in the future, they will build their own battery factories). According to UBS research's estimates, Tesla's average battery cost per vehicle is currently higher than that of Germany. The giants are around $1,300 lower.
However, there are also many who believe that the production capacity of the Berlin plant will not quickly climb to 500,000 vehicles. After all, the battery production line at the Berlin factory will not be in place until 2024, and given the difficulty in recruiting workers, the strict restrictions on overtime in German labor laws, the continued obstruction of environmental organizations, and challenges in the supply chain, some investment institutions believe that Tesla The capacity ramp at the Berlin plant is likely to be lower than expected. According to JPMorgan Chase’s forecast, the Berlin plant will produce 54,000 vehicles in 2022 and 280,000 vehicles in 2023, while the design capacity to climb to 500,000 vehicles will take until 2025. This also gave German domestic car companies some time to catch up.
In terms of software services, Tesla's advantage is even more obvious. According to Tesla's financial report, in 2021, the revenue item "service and other business income", which is mainly based on software service revenue, will achieve US$3.802 billion in revenue. At present, the OTA (Over the Air Technology remote upgrade software) services of mainstream German car companies are all By far, the software brings almost no revenue.
However, the German car giants will be fighting to catch up in the next few years.
Volkswagen announced that it will invest 2 billion euros to build a new car project "Trinity" with the same level of software service capabilities as Tesla. Build a smart factory, and the production efficiency will be on par with Tesla. Of course, because Trinity's production method is quite different from the current method, the project will not land until 2026.
BMW also proposed at the annual financial report meeting in March 2022 that it will adopt the intelligent production method "iFACTORY" in the future to intelligently upgrade factories around the world. In addition, Daimler Benz has also launched two pure electric platforms and self-developed automotive operating systems.
