As sales declined, Tesla lowered the prices of several models in major markets such as the United States, China, and Europe over the weekend, with a decrease of approximately $2000. The starting prices of the Model 3 and Model Y models in China have decreased to 231900 yuan and 249900 yuan respectively.
This electric vehicle giant once launched the most wide-ranging price war in history last year, not only driving a group of new car making forces such as Xiaopeng and Wenjie in the same price range to lower prices, but its influence even spread beyond the power form to fuel models at one point.
But now Chinese car manufacturers are no longer following Tesla's price cuts, which means Tesla is losing its price dominance in the segmented market of 250000 to 300000 yuan. Lin Jinwen, Vice President of Extreme Krypton Intelligent Technology, stated in a statement yesterday that based on a thorough prediction of the market, the brand has set highly competitive prices when releasing its models, and therefore will not follow Tesla's promotional strategy.
In the Chinese new energy market, where new cars appear almost every other day, users' attention has shifted to newer models such as the Xiaomi SU7. Xiaopeng followed up with Tesla's price reduction last year, but this year's price purchase subsidy is closely following the release pace of Xiaomi SU7.
Compared to Tesla, which has not been iterated for a long time, Chinese car manufacturers in the same price range have launched 800V architecture platforms, 8295 computing power chips, and urban advanced intelligent driving as standard equipment for consumer demand in segmented markets. The former's leading position in technology is being surpassed. New energy brand frontline sales personnel told Interface News that few consumers perceive Tesla's highlights beyond brand effect.
Tesla's latest quarterly delivery volume has seen a year-on-year decline for the first time in nearly four years, far below market expectations. The disappointing sales have made investors worried that the company will find it difficult to regain the momentum of rapid growth. Its market value fell below $500 billion for the first time in nearly a year last week, more than half of its peak period.
Tesla hopes to regain its leadership position in major markets. The board of directors has requested shareholders to vote in support of Musk's billions of dollars salary plan, in order to pull back the CEO's energy constrained by too many businesses such as rocket launches and social media, and encourage him to invest more attention in the struggling automotive company.
Musk may have realized that Tesla is about to face a very heavy challenge, and he posted that his visit to India has been postponed as a result.
It is rumored that Musk and Modi were originally scheduled to meet later this week and announced their entry into India to build a factory during this period. Indian officials familiar with the talks between the two sides have stated that Tesla plans to produce a low-cost car here. The postponement of the meeting means that Tesla's affordable electric vehicle project is once again uncertain, and this model is seen by the outside world as the key to the brand's game with Chinese competitors.
Investors have always hoped that affordable electric vehicles can drive Tesla's growth into a manufacturer for the mass market. Earlier, foreign media reported that Tesla had cancelled the project, and Musk subsequently denied this news, but did not provide any other details on the progress.
Another growth pole that Tesla is betting on is FSD, which is fully autonomous driving, attempting to cope with long-term profit pressures through unreleased autonomous driving software and fleets. To accelerate its recognition in the North American market, Tesla has recently lowered the package price by approximately $4000.
The latest version of Tesla's assisted driving system is hoped to salvage the downturn, but some investors are frustrated that it has not brought positive news to the stock market. One important reason is that FSD does not require almost no human intervention as its name suggests, and users actually need to stay focused while driving. Most car companies have already provided their own versions of assisted driving.
Musk has announced the launch of the autonomous taxi Robotaxi in August, but Tesla's followers are trying to distinguish between ideals and reality after constantly promising to achieve complete autonomous driving and repeatedly skipping tickets in the past decade.
In China, Tesla's second largest market after the United States, Musk has promised to soon implement FSD functionality in China. The company has established a local operations team in China last year to prepare for training algorithms. Industry insiders believe that due to factors such as regulations, there may be a technological application gap between Tesla FSD in China and the United States.